Meta isn't naming its AI models after fruit anymore

The social media giant has internally decided to stop naming its AI models after fruit, a person familiar with the matter said.

It’s largely a branding decision, as fruit-based codenames don’t chime well with Meta’s lofty AI ambitions, the person added. “Watermelon” was the internal codename for Meta’s latest AI, Wonder Full, which Meta said was its first cutting-edge “frontier” model.

Meta teased its launch by posting photos of the fruit.

Meta dubbed its previous language and image models “Avocado” and “Mango,” respectively.

Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, and AI chief, Alexandr Wang, joked on the Cheeky Pint podcast last month that they’ve run out of fruit names for their AI. “We’re out of fruits,” Zuckerberg said. “So we’re going to have to switch to a new convention.” “I think the only fruit that is technically larger is the durian, and you don’t want to go to the durian,” Wang said.

Meta isn’t the only tech company to name its AI products after items you can buy in a grocery store.

In 2025, OpenAI dubbed one model “Garlic” internally, The Information reported.

Google also released its “Nano Banana” image generator in 2025.

More recently, as AI models get more powerful, it’s become trendy to give them more awe-inspiring names, like Anthropic’s Mythos or OpenAI’s Astra.

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