Meta Acquires AI Analytics Platform Sundial, Folds It Into New Data Unit

Meta has acquired Sundial, an AI-powered data analytics platform founded by two former Meta employees, a company spokesperson confirmed. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Sundial will be folded into Meta's newly formed Data Analytics Tooling & Agents unit, nicknamed DATA, and will stop serving external customers when the deal closes. Sundial co-founders Julie Zhuo and Chandra Narayanan will join Meta, alongside other Sundial employees including several Meta alumni. Zhuo previously served as Meta's vice president of product design; Narayanan was analytics chief at Sequoia Capital and Instagram. Narayanan will lead Meta's data analytics tooling and agents work, according to Alex Schultz, who heads the unit. Meta named Schultz, its former marketing chief, as its first-ever chief data officer in July. The DATA unit handles descriptive analysis, experimentation and monitoring of the company's critical AI systems. "AI has created effectively unlimited demand for insights, and we want to define the future of AI analytics," Schultz wrote in a LinkedIn post.