Meta is developing what can only be described as a rather unsettling new tool: an AI version of Mark Zuckerberg designed to interact directly with employees — essentially a digital stand-in for the Silicon Valley CEO, The Financial Times reports.

The $1.6 trillion technology giant’s Superintelligence Labs division is prioritizing a “Zuckerberg AI character” capable of holding real-time conversations with staff, offering feedback, and mimicking the Meta chief’s tone, thinking, and decision-making style, according to multiple people familiar with the effort.

The goal is straightforward but eerie — create a system that lets employees engage with “Zuckerberg” at any time, even when the real one isn’t there.

The Zuckerberg AI character is being trained not just on his public statements, but also on his mannerisms and internal strategic thinking, effectively turning the CEO into a scalable digital presence across the company.

Employees could end up interacting with an artificial version of Zuckerberg as if it were the real thing — blurring the line between executive leadership and simulation.

AI ARMS RACE

This initiative sits inside a much larger — and massively expensive — ambition.

Zuckerberg is pouring staggering levels of investment and resources into Meta’s broader superintelligence push, what the tech leader calls “personal superintelligence.”

Welcome to the AI arms race between Meta AI, OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Alphabet’s Gemini.

Meta expects 2026 capital expenditures to be between $115 billion and $135 billion, driven by increased investment in AI infrastructure and its Superintelligence Labs efforts

There are effectively two "AI Zuckerberg" tracks here.

The first — and most striking — is the AI Zuckerberg designed to interact with employees, extending his reach across the organization in a way that feels less like delegation and more like replication.

The second is a more conventional “CEO agent,” a tool meant to support Zuckerberg directly by retrieving information and assisting with decision-making.

Zuckerberg himself is heavily involved, reportedly spending 5-10 hours each week coding and reviewing AI projects as he pushes Meta deeper into this space.

The social media conglomerate has already experimented with AI personalities — rolling out chatbots modeled on celebrities and enabling users to create their own AI characters.

One such example is its partnership with Snoop Dogg, who has agreed to license his likeness and persona for AI chatbots — effectively handing over the rights to a digital version of himself that can interact with users.

However, by turning that same technology inward, into a corporate tool that simulates the CEO, Meta’s “AI Zuck” marks a significant escalation and inflection point in the growing use of artificial intelligence in corporate America.

Meta aims to make these AI characters more lifelike by investing in voice technology and photorealistic digital embodiments — though scaling the system remains technically difficult due to the massive computing power required.

But if the experiment works, the implications go beyond Meta.

The company envisions a future where influencers and creators can build AI versions of themselves to interact with audiences — essentially cloning their personalities for mass engagement.

For now, though, the most immediate reality is inside Meta itself: a workplace where employees may increasingly find themselves taking orders not from a human executive, but from a highly trained digital replica of one.