Meta is launching a stand-alone artificial intelligence (AI) app that acts as an assistant, as the company gears up to compete with rivals OpenAI and Elon Musk’s xAI.
The tech giant’s announcement on Tuesday comes as the company rolled out its AI products in Europe last month.
This is all you need to know about Meta’s latest foray into AI.
What does the AI app do and what are the key features?
Meta called the app a “first step toward building a more personal AI” and said that it gets to know your preferences, remembers context, and is personalised to the user.
It can be controlled with voice mode, so you can ask it any questions, meaning it is “more seamless and natural to interact with” the AI, the company said, adding that there is a visible icon when the microphone is in use.
You can download it for free and it connects to your Instagram and Facebook accounts and can also be used through Meta’s Ray-Ban smartglasses.
The app also has a so-called Discover feed, which Meta said is a “place to share and explore how others are using AI”.
Another key feature, which Meta dubs as a window to its AI future, is a voice demo built with full-duplex speech technology, which can be toggled on and off to test.
Meta said that it does not have access to the web or real-time information and is more of an experiment, which the company hopes users will give feedback on.
For the moment, these voice conversations are only available in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
European users can download the app, but will not have access to voice conversations.
What is the app built on?
It is built with Meta Llama 4, which the tech giant says is one of the most innovative large language models (LLMs) ever created.
The app announcement was made at an inaugural LlamaCon developer event at its Menlo Park, California, headquarters.
Meta has admitted on its blogs that “public posts and comments on Facebook and Instagram [were used] to train generative AI models for these features and for the open source community”.
“We don’t use posts or comments with an audience other than Public for these purposes,” the company added.
It is unclear if other data sets are used.
Meta said that the app is the first version and that it was “excited to get this in people’s hands and gather their feedback”.
Meta is not the first app to launch a standalone AI app.
Google and xAI also recently released AI apps for their respective digital assistants Gemini and Grok.
