Meta AI opens to Indian users across WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Messenger

Meta had unveiled a new version of Meta AI, powered by the firm's latest large language model Llama 3 in April

Facebook parent Meta is starting to roll out its artificial intelligence chatbot Meta AI in India, the social networking giant said on June 24, as part of its efforts to scale up its AI offerings in an intensely competitive market.

This launch comes months after Meta tested the AI chatbot with a section of users in India, its largest market with a combined subscriber base of over a billion across its apps.

Last week, rival Google also extended the mobile app of its AI chatbot Gemini to India with support for nine Indian languages. These launches come after the general elections got over earlier this month.

Meta AI will be available in English across the company's suite of apps, including WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. It will also be available through the recently launched Meta.ai website.

A screenshot of Meta AI on WhatsApp (Image source: Meta)

In April, Meta had unveiled a new version of Meta AI, powered by the firm's latest large language model Llama 3. It had also rolled out the chatbot to more than a dozen countries, including the United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

"With this new model, we believe that Meta AI is now the most intelligent AI assistant that you can freely use," Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said at the time.

What can Meta AI do?

Meta first introduced Meta AI in September 2023 as part of the social networking giant's big push into generative AI.

Users can interact directly with the chatbot, which functions as a general-purpose assistant capable of answering a wide range of questions, including real-time information powered by Google and Microsoft's Bing.

One can also generate text and images, summarise long pieces of text, help with writing tasks such as proofreading, editing, translating text from one language to another, and create poems and stories.

People can also call in the assistant in their existing personal and group chats on WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger to get advise or ask questions.

For instance, one can ask for recommendations for a group trip, or ideas for dinner party recipes, following which it will offer options directly in the chat. One can type '@' in the message field and then tap Meta AI to converse with the chatbot.

Meta AI has also been integrated into the search bar of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger apps.

Apart from this, Facebook users will be able to access Meta AI while they are scrolling through the app's main feed. If they come across any post they are interested in, one can ask Meta AI for more information about it.

Facebook users will be also able to access Meta AI while they are scrolling through the app's main feed (Image Source: Meta)

For example, if one sees a photo of the northern lights in Iceland, they can ask Meta AI what is the best time of the year to check out the aurora borealis. Similarly, if someone sees a photo of a person playing a guitar, they can ask Meta AI for popular guitar songs to play.

Meta AI's Imagine feature also enables people to create images from text in real time. As users start typing, an image appears that changes with every few letters typed. People can also ask the chatbot to animate an existing image, iterate on it in a new style or turn it into a GIF to share with their friends. This feature was rolled out in beta on WhatsApp and the Meta AI web experience in the United States in April.

Ryan Cairns, who leads the engineering function for Meta's GenAI (Generative AI) team, told reporters in a media briefing that over tens of millions of people have tried their chatbot during their tests in India and the firm has received "lots of positive feedback on the experience".

Information gathering and learning have been among the top use cases the company saw during these tests in the country, Cairns said. This includes asking factual questions, getting instructional how-to advice, quizzes, and tutoring and learning support.

He said these use cases also change based on the app that consumers are using. For instance, the Meta.ai website witnesses more general productivity and coding-related questions while the Meta AI chatbot within the company's apps sees more questions related to emotional support, helping respond to messages and understanding a wide variety of things through quick queries.

Cairns said that every time the assistant enters a new market or releases a new feature, the firm conducts a rigorous testing process to identify where the model is working well and where it is not. This informs the company about where they are getting it right or where they might be missing things.

"Then, it comes down to fine-tuning and trying to understand if there are specific domains that we're doing well and domains where we are not doing well, and where do we need to improve. It's a very iterative process to train the model and get it right" he said.