Meta Tests AI Chatbot on WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger Across India and Beyond
Meta is testing Meta AI, its large language model-powered chatbot, with WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger users in India and parts of Africa. The move signals how Meta plans to tap massive user bases across its various apps to scale its AI offerings.
The company recently began testing the AI chatbot, until now available in testing in select markets including the U.S., with some users in India, many of them said. India, home to more than 500 million Facebook and WhatsApp users, is the social giant’s largest market.
Meta confirmed the move in a statement. “Our generative AI-powered experiences are under development in varying phases, and we’re testing a range of them publicly in a limited capacity,” a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch.
Meta unveiled Meta AI, its general-purpose assistant, in late September. The AI chatbot is designed to answer user queries directly within chats as well as offer them the ability to generate photorealistic images from text prompts.
Instagram and WhatsApp’s massive global user base, boasting billions of monthly active users, presents Meta with a very unique opportunity to scale its AI offerings. By integrating Meta AI into WhatsApp and Instagram, the Facebook-parent firm can expose its advanced language model and image generation capabilities to an enormous audience, potentially dwarfing the reach of its competitors.
The company separately confirmed earlier this week that it will be launching Llama 3, the next version of its open-source large language model, within the next month.
Omg Meta just casually dropped it's AI powered by Llama on WhatsApp 😳🤯 pic.twitter.com/6DqnnSJ07l
— Nikhil Kumar (@nikhilkumarks) April 12, 2024
Source: TechCrunch
