Sept 25 (Reuters) - Meta staffers have had

discussions with Alphabet's Google Cloud about the

possibility of using its Gemini models to improve the Facebook

parent's ad business, the Information reported on Thursday.

The talks are still in relatively early stages and may not

result in an agreement, the report said, citing people with

knowledge of the conversations.

Alphabet declined to comment, while Meta did not immediately

respond to a Reuters request for comment.

The Meta employees have proposed fine-tuning rival Google's

Gemini and open-source Gemma models on Meta's ad data to improve

its ad targeting capabilities, the report said.

The Instagram and WhatsApp owner's move to pick Google's AI over

its own in-house models underscores the issues the company has

had with scaling AI technology, despite the billions of dollars

it has spent on research, infrastructure and talent.

Meta and Google directly compete in the online advertising

market. In their most recent quarterly earnings reports both

companies said that their investments in AI are fueling gains in

their core ad businesses.

Meta had already been considering partnerships with Google

or ChatGPT maker OpenAI to improve AI features, including

conversational responses for queries on its chatbot Meta AI and

to power AI features in Meta's social media apps, the

Information reported last month.