In a bold weekend move, Meta took the tech world by storm with the unannounced release of its new AI model series Llama 4. The drop happened on a quiet Saturday, catching everyone off guard and setting a new benchmark for AI capabilities.

Meta Launches Llama 4 A New Era in AI
Meta Launches Llama 4 A New Era in AI 2

Meet the Llama 4 Lineup

Meta introduced three distinct models:

  • Llama 4 Scout
  • Llama 4 Maverick
  • Llama 4 Behemoth (currently still in training)

All three are designed with powerful multimodal capabilities, trained on massive datasets of unlabeled text, images and video enabling a much broader and deeper understanding of the world.

Why the Sudden Launch?

Behind this accelerated rollout lies pressure from China-based DeepSeek, whose open models (like R1 and V3) recently started outperforming Meta’s previous Llama versions. That competitive heat forced Meta into action, pushing its teams to fast-track development. The result? A faster-than-expected debut of Llama 4 with Scout and Maverick already live on llama and Hugging Face. The third model, Behemoth, is still under training but already drawing attention for its scale.

Llama 4 Now Powers Meta AI in 40 Countries

Meta didn’t stop at open models. It integrated Llama 4 into Meta AI, the assistant built into WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, and more. The new update is live across 40 countries, but the full multimodal features (text + image + video understanding) are currently exclusive to U.S. users in English.

Llama 4’s EU Access Limitations

While the new models are powerful, not everyone can access them. Meta’s license prohibits usage or distribution by anyone domiciled or headquartered in the European Union likely due to stringent EU AI and data laws.

Another condition: companies with over 700 million monthly users need Meta’s approval to use Llama 4. That decision lies entirely with Meta.

Innovative Architecture, Mixture of Experts (MoE)

Llama 4 introduces a major upgrade: the Mixture of Experts (MoE) architecture. This system routes parts of a task to specialized “experts” (mini-models), significantly improving both efficiency and accuracy.

Breakdown of the Models:

Llama 4 Scout

Scout shines in tasks like document summarization and reasoning over large codebases. Uniquely, it features an impressive context window of 10 million tokens. (“Tokens” represent bits of raw text  e.g., the word “fantastic” split into “fan,” “tas,” and “tic.”) Simply put, this means Scout can process and work with extremely lengthy documents, including images and millions of words.

  • It’s designed to run on a single Nvidia H100 GPU, making it more accessible for those with less powerful hardware.
  • 109B total parameters
  • 17B active parameters
  • 16 experts

Can run on a single Nvidia H100 GPU

Best for, Code analysis, document summarization, image-text understanding

Context window: Up to 10 million tokens (can process entire books! Maverick takes things to the next level with 400 billion parameters and 128 experts, offering more power and scale for complex tasks like general chat, creative writing, and multitasking. Unlike Scout, Maverick requires advanced GPU setups, such as an Nvidia.

DGX system.

  • 400B total parameters
  • 17B active per query
  • 128 experts
  • Requires advanced GPU setups like Nvidia DGX
  • Best for: General chat, creative writing, multitasking
  • Llama 4 Behemoth(in training)
    • Nearly 2 trillion total parameters
    • 288B active parameters
    • Dominates STEM benchmarks beating GPT-4.5 and Claude 3.7 Sonnet
    • Still slightly behind Gemini 2.5 Pro
    • Designed for ultra-heavy reasoning and high-performance tasks

How Does Llama 4 Perform?

Meta claims that Maverick beats GPT-4o and Gemini 2.0 on several fronts:

  • Programming tasks
  • Complex reasoning
  • Multilingual capabilities
  • Long-form content
  • Vision-language benchmarks

Even though it slightly trails top-tier models like Gemini 2.5 Pro or Claude 3.7 Sonnet, Llama 4 shows massive potential and this is just the beginning.

Tackling Controversial Topics Head-On

Unlike older models that sidestepped hot topics, Llama 4 engages more openly with sensitive political and social issues. Meta says this approach ensures balanced and fact-based responses, not filtered or judgmental ones.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared on Instagram,

“Our mission is to create the world’s most advanced AI, open-source it, and make it accessible to everyone, ensuring that people across the globe can benefit.”

This move responds directly to growing criticism, especially from U.S. conservatives who accuse AI models of having left-leaning biases. Meta is clearly aiming to position Llama 4 as an open, transparent, and fearless assistant.

Llama 4: The Beginning of a New Era in AI

Meta calls Llama 4 “the beginning of a new era,” and it’s hard to argue. With smart architecture, unmatched multimodal capability, and the courage to face tough topics this is a serious leap forward in AI. Scout brings lightweight precision. Maverick adds power and scale. Behemoth promises to raise the ceiling even higher. One thing’s clear: Llama 4 isn’t just another AI release; it’s a statement.