Meta AI bot used a billion times monthly: Mark Zuckerberg
Meta says use of its generative artificial intelligence assistant is growing fastest at its WhatsApp messaging platform. Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg touted the tech firm's generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) assistant, telling shareholders it is used by a billion people each month across its platforms.
Zuckerberg noted the milestone anew at Meta's annual gathering of shareholders as the social media behemoth vies with Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and others to be a leader in Gen AI. It was not clear how much Meta AI use involved people seeking out the chatbot versus passive users of Meta AI, as it is built into features in its family of apps.
AI Overviews by Google
Since Google debuted AI Overviews in search results a year ago, it has grown to more than 1.5 billion users according to Google chief executive Sundar Pichai. Google's AI Overviews are automatically provided summaries of search results that appear instead of the previous practice of simply showing pages of blue links to relevant websites. Pichai said last week that Google's dedicated Gemini AI app has more than 400 million monthly users.
Tech rivals are rapidly releasing new AI products despite ongoing challenges with preventing misinformation and establishing clear business models, and little sense of how the tech will affect society.
Meta's Standalone AI Assistant App
Meta unveiled its first standalone AI assistant app on April 29, giving users a direct path to its Gen AI models. Zuckerberg said the app "is designed to be your personal AI" and would be primarily accessed through voice conversations with the interactions personalized to the individual user.
Use of Meta AI is growing fastest on WhatsApp, according to chief financial officer Susan Li. "Our focus for this year is deepening the experience and making Meta AI the leading personal AI," Zuckerberg said when Meta announced quarterly earnings at the end of April.
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