Meta Buys Sundial to Put AI Answers on Demand
Meta Buys Sundial to Put AI Answers on Demand
Meta has acquired Sundial, an AI-powered analytics platform founded by two former Meta employees, and will bring its founders and other staff into the company. The transaction comes as Meta expands the data-and-analytics infrastructure it sees as essential to its wider AI push.
The timing matters. In July, Meta named former marketing chief Alex Schultz as its first chief data officer and put him in charge of the newly formed Data Analytics Tooling & Agents unit, known internally as DATA. The unit is tasked with descriptive analysis, experimentation on data and AI products, and monitoring critical AI systems for problems.
Sundial is now set to become part of that operation. Its software lets business users put natural-language questions to complex datasets through a chatbot-style plug-in, producing what the company describes as simple, actionable findings. The promise is to let teams investigate their own data rather than wait for a centralized analytics group—a model Meta appears to see as too slow for the volume of questions AI is generating.
Under the new structure, co-founder Chandra Narayanan will lead Meta’s “data analytics tooling and agents work,” according to Schultz. Sundial co-founder Julie Zhuo, formerly Meta’s vice president of product design, will also return, alongside other employees that include Meta alumni.
For Meta, the purchase is less about keeping Sundial in the market than absorbing its capability: the startup will stop serving external customers once the deal closes. Schultz framed the strategy bluntly: “AI has created effectively unlimited demand for insights, and we want to define the future of AI analytics.” The acquisition puts that ambition inside Meta’s own data engine first.
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