Adds spokesperson's comments in paragraph 6, 7

March 12 (Reuters) - Meta META.O has postponed the release of its artificial intelligence model "Avocado" to at least May, from this month, the New York Times reported on Thursday, citing sources.

The performance of Meta's new AI model currently falls between Google's GOOGL.O AI Gemini 2.5 and Gemini 3, delaying its launch until May or June, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The delayed timeline comes even as the company invests heavily to expand its AI ambitions, including a roadmap for building its own chips.

In January, Meta laid out capital-spending plans of between $115 billion and $135 billion for the year in the pursuit of "superintelligence" - the horizon where AI will outsmart humans.

Meta's new model, which the company has been working on for months, has fallen short in performance when compared with the latest offerings from rivals, the NYT report said.

"As we've said publicly, our next model will be good, but more importantly, show the rapid trajectory we're on, and then we'll steadily push the frontier over the course of the year as we continue to release new models," a Meta spokesperson told Reuters, reiterating CEO Mark Zuckerberg's remarks during an earnings call in January.

"We're excited for people to see what we've been cooking very soon," the spokesperson added.

The leaders of Meta's AI division have discussed the possibility of temporarily licensing Gemini to power the company's AI products, the report added, although no decisions have been reached.

Media outlets had reported in December that Meta was working on a text AI model code-named Avocado, slated for a first-quarter launch.

(Reporting by Gnaneshwar Rajan and Devika Nair in Bengaluru and Katie Paul in New York; Editing by Alan Barona, Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Janane Venkatraman)

((Gnaneshwar.Rajan@thomsonreuters.com))