Discover Meta AI: The New Age of Conversational Assistants

This article gives a quick rundown of what the Meta AI assistant is and how it compares to other chatbots like ChatGPT or Gemini. It also provides tips on how to use it.

What Is the Meta AI Assistant, Anyway?

Meta AI is a free conversational AI assistant for apps like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. You'll also find it in hardware like Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and Quest VR headsets, along with a standalone version on the web.

You'll find Meta AI as part of the search bar in the suite of apps mentioned above. You can use the bar to search as you did before or start a conversation with Meta AI for real-time information, image generation, and more.

Who Built Meta AI?

Meta AI is an artificial intelligence research laboratory owned by Meta Platforms Inc. It was founded in 2015 as Facebook Artificial Intelligence Research (FAIR) and later renamed when Facebook, Inc. rebranded as Meta Platforms, Inc.

The team behind the chatbot includes researchers and engineers who work on machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, and other areas of AI research.

Meta AI's unique language model is called Llama 3; it's open-source and freely available. The company positions it as a competitor to ChatGPT and Google Gemini, with several features custom-designed for the popular apps you use.

What Can Meta AI Do?

Meta AI is similar to generative multi-modal chatbots like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini. But uniquely, it also works with Google and Bing for real-time search.

Meta AI works across feeds, chats, and searches on all of the company's social platforms. It can work as a simple productivity app to get things done; as a search engine to find answers and recommendations; or to produce images, stickers, and animated GIFs with its image generation prompts.

All messages are end-to-end encrypted.

The chatbot also combines Meta AI with Emu, the video and image generation model. You can easily generate images directly in messages or group chats with a prompt. For instance, Emu's capabilities let you take a photo and change its visual style or background with a few prompts.

Running on Llama 3, it can handle complex tasks like translation and conversations. The language model is powerful and can easily manage many steps. The improved training methods in the latest version make it better at giving accurate and more varied answers. The developers claim that it also has better capabilities in reasoning, creating code, and following instructions.

How Can You Use Meta AI?

If you live in the U.S. or any supported country, you can use Meta AI in Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and on the web.

Meta AI, as a conversational chatbot, is easy to use. Here's an example on Instagram:

You're planning a beach trip with friends in an Instagram Group chat. Use the search field and Meta AI's auto-suggestions to find the perfect beach for everyone. At the end of the day, describe your beach day with keywords (surfboard, palm trees, etc) and ask it to draw an image. Meta AI whips up a memorable photo for the whole group in the chat.

Along with Meta AI, there are 28 more AI 'characters' with unique personas and even social profiles on Facebook and Instagram. Some are digital avatars of cultural icons you recognize, such as Snoop Dogg, Tom Brady, Kendall Jenner, and Naomi Osaka. Meta AI generates their text posts, and the images come from Emu.