- Bay Area Times
- Posts
- Meta said to delay Avocado model to at least May, weighs Gemini licensing
Meta said to delay Avocado model to at least May, weighs Gemini licensing
Bay Area Times
March 13, 2026
Brought to you by:
Top stories today:
- Meta delays Avocado model to at least May, weighs Gemini licensing
- Grok 4.20 API launches, less intelligent than Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude
- Trump signals strength vs. Iran, presses Powell to lower rates, oil at $96
- Anthropic’s Claude would “pollute” DoW supply chain: Pentagon CTO
- Lovable reaches $400M ARR amid AI coding boom
- Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen to step down as Q1 revenue +12%
- Microsoft launches Copilot Health using medical, wearable data
0. Data and calendar
All values as of 6 AM ET / 3 AM PT, other than S&P500 and NASDAQ close (4 PM ET / 1 PM PT).
All times are ET.
Listen to our AI-generated podcast summarizing today’s newsletter (beware of hallucinations):
1. Meta said to delay Avocado model to at least May, weighs Gemini licensing
Representational image generated using ChatGPT.
The Avocado model failed to beat Gemini 3.0 in Meta’s internal benchmarking.
Jul. 2025: Mark Zuckerberg said Meta’s new AI models would “push the frontier in the next year or so.”
Meta’s AI leaders reportedly discussed temporarily licensing Gemini to power its products.
Stop swapping between tools. 150,000+ Microsoft customers use Slack to connect every tool and automate workflows.
Watch the demo to see integrations with Office and SharePoint, AI-powered automation, and no-code search.
Benefit from an open ecosystem with 2,600+ apps that puts AI at the center of collaboration.
*Sponsored.
3. Grok 4.20 API launches, less intelligent than Gemini, ChatGPT, Claude
Grok 4.20 Beta 0309 scored 48 on the Artificial Analysis Intelligence Index with reasoning enabled, +6 points vs. Grok 4, but still very much behind the leading labs:
Priced at $2/$6 per 1M input/output tokens, vs. Grok 4’s $3/$15, GPT-5.4’s $2.5/$15, Claude Opus 4.6’s $5/$25 (<200K tokens), and GLM-5’s $1/$3.2.
Released in three variants: reasoning, non-reasoning, and multi-agent.
Elon said it is reviewing past xAI interview decisions and reaching out again to promising candidates
xAI also hired senior Cursor leaders Andrew Milich and Jason Ginsberg; Musk said the company could catch up in coding by midyear.
Post-training, evaluation, reasoning research — this is PhD-level work, and U.S. supply just isn’t keeping up with demand.
Athyna Intelligence connects you with vetted AI researchers from Latin America who bring deep STEM expertise, move fast, and work in U.S.-aligned time zones. Oh, and at 40–60% less than hiring domestically.
The talent exists. You just have to know where to look.
*Disclaimer: We have equity in Athyna.
