Yann LeCun has confirmed the launch of a new artificial intelligence startup, Advanced Machine Intelligence (AMI), formalizing a move that had been widely anticipated in the research and venture communities. LeCun will serve as Executive Chairman, rather than CEO, with leadership handed to Alex LeBrun, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Nabla. The company’s formation places one of the field’s most influential scientists behind a commercial effort focused on “world model” AI, an approach aimed at enabling systems to reason about cause and effect rather than rely solely on large language models.
AMI is expected to pursue an ambitious fundraising effort, reportedly seeking hundreds of millions of euros at a multibillion-dollar valuation before launching a product, reflecting sustained investor appetite for startups founded by prominent AI researchers. The company’s focus on world models positions it alongside major labs and well-funded startups developing alternatives to probabilistic text generation. LeBrun’s appointment brings operational experience from scaling Nabla, which has raised more than $100 million and will now be led on an interim basis by its Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, Delphine Groll. Nabla has also signed a partnership to adopt AMI’s models as they are developed, creating an early commercial link between the two companies as LeCun transitions from academic leadership and his former role as Vice President and Chief AI Scientist at Meta into a new entrepreneurial chapter.
