Meta taps Midjourney to power AI images across all apps

Meta has announced a partnership with Midjourney to “license their aesthetic technology” for use across Meta’s models and products, broadening its push into AI-generated imagery under new chief AI officer Alexandr Wang.

Wang described the deal as a “technical collaboration between our research teams,” signaling work that goes beyond simply enabling Midjourney inside Meta’s apps.

The announcement arrives as Meta pours resources into what it calls AI “superintelligence” in an effort to keep pace with OpenAI and Google. Zuckerberg has offered big pay packages to recruit researchers. Wang joined after Meta paid $14.3 billion for 49% of Scale AI, the company he co-founded.

The deal supports Meta’s plan to add AI images across its apps. Meta AI shows a feed of AI images and videos, Facebook has a “create AI image” button, and WhatsApp and Instagram let you make images in chats.

Midjourney became prominent for its image and video generators.

As the tech company expands the Meta AI app’s social feed, it may lean on Midjourney’s approach to help users produce more polished visuals. “We are incredibly impressed by Midjourney,” Wang said. “They have accomplished true feats of technical and aesthetic excellence, and we are thrilled to be working more closely with them.” He said both companies will share more “soon.”

Even with the collaboration, Midjourney remains “an independent, community-backed research lab” with “no investors,” founder and CEO David Holz said.

Meta brings in another Apple AI expert amid hiring freeze

According to people with knowledge of the situation, the company is bringing aboard another senior Apple AI leader after Cryptopolitan reported that the company prepares to slow hiring. Frank Chu, who has led Apple teams focused on cloud infrastructure, training, and search, will join Meta Superintelligence Labs, or MSL, the people said.

At Apple, Chu helped operate large language models on the company’s cloud servers, oversaw parts of model training, and contributed to search features for Siri and Apple’s entertainment services.

Chu is at least the sixth Apple AI-models staffer to head to Meta. The departures began in July, when Ruoming Pang, who created Apple’s models team, left for a $200 million package at Meta. Since then, AI engineers Tom Gunter, Mark Lee, Bowen Zhang, and Yun Zhu have also departed for Meta.

Aside from Pang, Chu is the most notable exit given his remit and seniority. He served as a lieutenant to Benoit Dupin, Apple’s executive overseeing AI infrastructure, who reports to John Giannandrea, Apple’s AI strategy chief.

Chu is slated to join a new unit called MSL Infra responsible for AI infrastructure at Meta. Earlier this week, Meta reorganized its AI organization into four groups, all reporting to Wang.

Meta’s AI talent raid undermines Apple’s efforts

In a memo to hiring managers, the company wrote the pause “will allow leadership to thoughtfully plan our 2026 headcount growth, as we work through our strategy.” The memo also said, “Alex’s staff will evaluate any business critical hires on a case by case basis.”

Wang, however, said in a social media post Thursday that Meta is “investing more and more into Meta Superintelligence Labs.”

For Apple, the departures add turbulence to an AI push already trying to make up ground. The company has delayed a high-profile Siri update.

Following a leadership shake-up, Apple is weighing the use of third-party AI models for the voice assistant instead of relying solely on its own technology. That shift, together with Pang’s exit, unsettled Apple’s AI models team and accelerated the talent drain.

Don’t just read crypto news. Understand it. Subscribe to our newsletter. It's free.