Meta AI director Rohit Patel leaves to challenge Microsoft Office and Google Workspace

Rohit Patel, who spent eight years developing AI technologies at Meta, has left the company to start a new venture called Ndoc, TechCrunch reported. Patel previously served as director at Meta Superintelligence Labs, focusing on reinforcement learning and AI evaluation.

Ndoc is designed as an AI-native alternative to Microsoft Office Suite and Google Workspace, aiming to replace the fragmented workflow across tools like Excel, Word, PowerPoint, and others. Patel envisions a unified workspace accessible to all colleagues, even those not signed up for Ndoc.

The platform integrates three main components: the Stage tab for presentations and dashboards, the Narrative tab for analyses and citations, and the Model tab housing datasets and Python scripts. This design reflects Patel's background in reinforcement learning and AI trustworthiness.

Patel emphasized the importance of transparency in AI-generated documents, allowing users to verify the Python scripts behind reports and presentations. His departure follows other recent exits from Meta's AI leadership team.

Ndoc seeks to streamline collaboration and decision-making by combining data, analysis, and presentation in one interface, potentially transforming how companies use AI in office productivity tools.