Meta taps MongoDB CEO Desai to drive enterprise AI push

Sept 28 : Meta Platforms has poached MongoDB CEO Chirantan "CJ" Desai to spearhead a new business designed to bring the social media giant's AI tools to corporate customers.

Shares of the database software provider tumbled 18 per cent in morning trading on Monday as he is leaving after less than a year as the top boss.

Desai, a veteran technology executive, took over the role from Dev Ittycheria. MongoDB has appointed Ittycheria as interim CEO as it searches for a permanent replacement.

"While the departure is disappointing, we believe MongoDB remains well-positioned strategically and view the share-price reaction as overdone," brokerage Piper Sandler said in a note.

Meta said on Monday it would bring its AI models, agents and tools to businesses under its new Meta Enterprise Platform, including the newly launched Muse, Meta Business Agent and coding tools.

The company launched Muse earlier this month, a personal AI agent designed to carry out tasks such as shopping, booking travel, sending emails and making payments on behalf of users.

Muse has rapidly climbed in Apple's App Store and Google Play rankings in recent weeks and has been described by analysts as potentially the biggest app launch in the US since ChatGPT in November 2022 that helped kick off the AI boom.

Desai will directly report to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in the newly created role of chief enterprise platform officer and will focus on turning the company's AI stack into products and services that companies can deploy for their own businesses.

Before joining MongoDB, Desai led product and engineering at Cloudflare and spent nearly eight years at ServiceNow, including as president and chief operating officer.

MongoDB provides database software used by businesses to build and run applications, with tools for data management, search, analytics and AI.