Meta is the latest social media company to jump on the artificial intelligence train according to comments shared by its Chief Executive Officer, Mark Zuckerberg, in a Facebook post published yesterday.
According to Zuckerberg, the company is working on the creation of a “top-level product group” focused on generative AI – the technology that powers the popular ChatGPT software developed by OpenAI.
To accomplish its goal, the firm is assembling a team that will solely focus on the development of such a product. According to Zuckerberg, they will focus on “building creative and expressive tools”.
In addition, the company could develop “AI personas” – which can maybe be better understood as virtual assistants – that users can rely on to better use the platforms owned by Meta.
The team may primarily work on new features that involve text prompts within platforms such as Messenger and WhatsApp. Zuckerberg, however, acknowledged that there is still “a lot of foundational work” to be done before any of these tools can be released to the public.
Meta is Not Leaving any Stone Unturned to Stay atop of the Latest Trends
The announcements come only a day after Snapchat, a fast-growing competitor to Instagram and Facebook, launched a ChatGPT-powered AI assistant called “My AI” that subscribers of its Snapchat+ program can already have access to.
For Meta, staying on top of the latest trends in the tech space seems to be a priority as the company allowed TikTok to rise to popularity by failing to catch a shift in users’ preferences that prioritized videos over images.
Zuckerberg, at some point, acknowledged that he “failed to anticipate” these changes. In a recent call with analysts and investors, the head of the Menlo Park-based social media company said that this will be a “year of efficiency” for his firm and engineers seem to have been working around the clock to launch several new features that are primarily responding to what competitors are doing.
Some examples of this include the Meta Verified subscription package that will allow users to get a blue badge on their Facebook and Instagram profiles in exchange for paying a monthly subscription. This was an idea taken from Elon Musk’s playbook at Twitter that appears to have been successful enough to catch Meta’s attention.
In addition, Meta is working on a feature that is similar to BeReal – another social media platform that became popular during the pandemic – that prompts the members of a group to share a picture of whatever they are doing at some point during the day. This trend gained momentum lately in response to the changes that Meta introduced on Instagram that made a more TikTok-like platform.
Is Meta Still Working on the Metaverse?
The metaverse has become a secondary subject lately amid the rise to stardom of generative AI solutions such as ChatGPT. The latter platform has gained significant traction and has seen its monthly active users (MAUs) grow to over 100 million according to statistics pulled by Swiss bank UBS.
Nevertheless, Meta Platforms (META) is not caving in its effort to build a virtual realm. During the fourth quarter of 2022, the Reality Labs unit – the one in charge of developing this initiative – generated operating losses of $4.28 billion, meaning that it spent nearly $5 billion on that particular endeavor in a single quarter.
In its latest call with analysts, Zuckerberg emphasized that its short-term priority is artificial intelligence while the metaverse is more of a long-term play. In regards to the latter initiative, the head of Meta commented on some of the progress the company has made including the first shipments of the Quest Pro device last year and the fact that more than 200 apps within its ecosystem have already made more than $1 million in revenues.
