Meta’s newest whiz kid has bagged himself a mighty $250 million pay packet, but users of the 24-year-old researcher’s last AI offering have labelled it “clunky” and complained it “sucks at Google Chrome.”
Matt Deitke’s last tech tool, Vy is said to handle repetitive tasks “with high accuracy” and without interrupting users while they browse.
The product learns by observing user behavior and executes commands directly on the user’s computer.
But some Vy users like Julian Goldie, a search engine optimization expert, said its performance varies depending on the application and others claim the agent’s performance hasn’t lived up to the buzz
“It sucks at Google Chrome, flopped with Numbers, but it’s magic with ChatGPT, Pages and Descript,” Goldie posted on X.
Goldie likened Vy to Apple’s iPhone during its early development.
“It’s like the early iPhone moment for AI agents,” he wrote.
He also acknowledged Vy’s potential for managing workflow.
“It’s like having an intern — except it doesn’t ghost you, doesn’t get tired and knows how to use your apps better than you do.”
Deitke, who ditched his computer science doctoral program at the University of Washington to join Meta, recently turned his nose up at CEO Zuckerberg’s “low-ball” offer of around $125 million over four years, according to the New York Times.
But when the Facebook founder had a meeting with him and doubled the offer, he accepted what could be one of the largest pay packets in corporate history, the Times said.
Zuckerberg’s protegee appears to have jumped ship from his startup, Vercept, which he founded with friends in November.
Vercept raised $16 million in funding from venture capital and tech investors to push out Vy, but some users say they’re struggling to find practical uses for the tool.
One Reddit user, @u/fontainegal66 complained it was clunky.
“Been using it this past week, I’ve tried a bunch of stuff, some tasks it handles well, others still feel a bit clunky.”
“I tried organizing a folder. It takes a lot of time. Takes screenshots, understands and then slowly does it. Maybe jobs like manual scraping it might do. I need to try,” user Glittering-AD-8200 wrote on Reddit.
“I’m really struggling to find a way to make it useful. It’s technically impressive, but I … don’t know how to get it doing useful things,” user @TonyTrewinnard also posted on X.
Some users also noted technical glitches on Vercept’s website, including issues signing up for the Vy waitlist.
“Your site won’t let us join the waitlist. It keeps saying Mac only. Why does it think I don’t have a Mac? You shouldn’t make it so hard to follow you,” the @TechGuys account replied to an X video introducing Vy in May.
Deitke, who until recently was offering Vy for free, acknowledged before now that the company was still in its early stages.
“We’re still very new and very young,” Deitke said in a recent interview with tech blogger Robert Scoble. “Making it an amazing experience is our number one priority right now.”
Deitke did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment.
Zuckerberg told investors on the company’s Wednesday earnings call Meta is “building an elite, talent-dense team.
“If you’re going to be spending hundreds of billions of dollars on compute and building out multiple gigawatt of clusters, then it really does make sense to compete super hard and do whatever it takes to get that, you know, 50 or 70 or whatever it is, top researchers to build your team,” he said.
“There’s just an absolute premium for the best and most talented people.”
