May 15 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms ( META ) is delaying

the release of its flagship "Behemoth" AI model due to concerns

about its capabilities, the Wall Street Journal reported on

Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Company engineers are struggling to significantly improve

the capabilities of its Behemoth large-language model, resulting

in staff questions about whether improvements over earlier

versions are significant enough to justify public release, the

report said.

Early in its development, Behemoth was internally scheduled

for release in April to coincide with Meta's inaugural AI

conference for developers, but later pushed an internal target

for the model's launch to June, according to the report. It has

now been delayed to fall or later, the report said.

The social media giant did not immediately respond to a

Reuters request for comment.

Meta had said in April it was previewing Llama 4 Behemoth,

which it called "one of the smartest LLMs in the world and our

most powerful yet to serve as a teacher for our new models".

It released the latest version of its LLM Llama, called the

Llama 4 Scout and Llama 4 Maverick, that month.