Meta buys AI analytics startup Sundial, founded by two ex-Meta staff

The latest:

Meta has acquired Sundial, an AI-driven data analytics platform, a company spokesperson confirmed to Axios. The startup will be absorbed into Meta’s new data analytics organization, according to a LinkedIn post by Alex Schultz, the executive who runs the unit. Sundial will stop serving external customers once the transaction closes, and its founders and several other employees move to Meta with their technology.

Details:

• The founders: Sundial was co-founded by Julie Zhuo and Chandra Narayanan, both of whom join Meta under the deal, according to Axios. Zhuo previously served as Meta’s vice president of product design. Narayanan was analytics chief at Sequoia Capital and Instagram, and earlier director of analytics at Facebook.
• The new role: Schultz said Narayanan will lead Meta’s data analytics tooling and agents work, placing a returning executive directly over the function the acquisition is meant to strengthen. The announcement did not specify a reporting structure for Zhuo or a start date for either founder.
• The team: Other Sundial staff, including several Meta alumni, are moving across as well and bringing the company’s AI analytics technology with them, according to Axios. Neither the number of employees involved nor the financial terms of the acquisition were disclosed.
• The product: Sundial’s platform was built to give businesses fast access to reliable data analysis, according to Axios. It converts natural-language questions and complex datasets into simple, actionable insights delivered through a chatbot plugin, so teams can run their own analysis rather than queuing behind a centralized data unit.
• The buyer’s unit: Meta named Schultz, its former marketing chief, as its first-ever chief data officer in July. He oversees the newly formed Data Analytics Tooling & Agents group, nicknamed DATA, which Sundial will now sit inside.
• What DATA does: The unit handles descriptive analysis, including identifying questions the company has not yet thought to ask, and runs experimentation to test and improve Meta’s data and AI products. It also monitors Meta’s critical AI systems and issues alerts when they need attention.
• The rationale: Schultz framed the move in ambitious terms, writing that “AI has created effectively unlimited demand for insights, and we want to define the future of AI analytics.” Meta did not detail how Sundial’s tools will be integrated into existing internal systems.
• The customers: Sundial’s existing external clients lose the product at closing, according to Axios, making this an acquisition of technology and people rather than a business Meta intends to keep operating commercially. No transition timeline for those customers was announced.

Background:

Meta has been reorganizing its data functions over the past year, creating a chief data officer role in July for the first time in company history and standing up the DATA unit under Schultz, a longtime executive who previously ran marketing.

Between the lines:

The structure of the deal points to talent and technology, not revenue: Sundial stops serving outside customers at closing, and its two co-founders are Meta alumni returning to run the exact function the company just built an organization around. Narayanan’s appointment over tooling and agents suggests Meta intends to rebuild Sundial’s capability internally rather than maintain it as a standalone product.

What’s next

Watch for the deal to close and for Meta to disclose financial terms, plus any indication of how Sundial’s chatbot-based analysis is embedded into DATA’s tooling and agents roadmap under Narayanan.