Meta unveils its AI assistant for Indian consumers

Nearly a week after the launch of the Google Gemini App in India, Meta announced that it is rolling out its AI assistant for users in India on its social platforms Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and Messenger on Monday.

Launched worldwide in April at Meta’s annual flagship event Connect – this AI assistant uses Meta Llama 3, Meta’s most advanced LLM to date. So far, this AI assistant has been in beta testing for Indian users. Now, it will be made available to all consumers in the country.

It is starting to roll out in India in English first, allowing users to tap into generative AI-enabled search capabilities, assistance, information-seeking abilities and many more features. Meta is entering a market that already has similar AI assistant tools such as Microsoft Copilot and Google’s Gemini.

In a media roundtable attended by businessline, Ryan Cairns, VP of Engineering, Meta explained features of the AI assistant that make it different from similar products in the market. The biggest distinction is that unlike Gemini, users won’t have to install another application, he said, “It is already there on apps that you already have. So it is not a new install. Similarly, you don’t have to pay a subscription fee to use the application.”

Cairns also said that during beta testing, they found that education-related questions were one of the most popular queries on the AI assistant.

Meta AI can be accessed on chats or while scrolling through one’s feed. Meta also has a text-to-image generation feature called Meta AI’s Imagine feature.

When asked how its AI assistant could curb misinformation on its platforms, Meta said, “We’re evaluating and improving our conversational AIs with external and internal experts through red teaming exercises. Dedicated teams of experts have spent thousands of hours stress-testing these models, looking for unexpected ways that might be used along with identifying and fixing vulnerabilities.” The Hindu BusinessLine