Anindita Nayak
Bhubaneswar, 24 June 2024
Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has announced the rollout of its AI chatbot, Meta AI, in India. This move aims to enhance its AI services in a highly competitive market. After months of testing the chatbot with select Indian users, Meta is now expanding access to its largest market, where it has over a billion subscribers across its various apps.
Meta AI, available in English, is accessible on WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and the Meta.ai website. In April, Meta upgraded Meta AI with the Llama 3 language model and expanded its availability to over a dozen countries, including the US, Australia, Canada, and several African nations.
“With this new model, we believe that Meta AI is now the most intelligent AI assistant that you can freely use,” said Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Executive, Meta.
Meta AI, launched in September 2023, enhances generative AI capabilities by providing real-time information sourced from Google and Microsoft’s Bing. It supports creating text, images, summaries, editing, translating, and creative tasks such as generating poems and stories. Users can integrate Meta AI into chats on WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger for advice and information. Additionally, Meta AI’s Imagine feature allows users to create and animate images from text input, apply artistic styles, and convert images into GIFs. This feature was tested in beta on WhatsApp and the Meta AI website in the United States starting in April.
During tests in India, Meta’s chatbot was widely used for information gathering and learning, including factual questions, how-to advice, quizzes, and tutoring. Usage varied across platforms; Meta.ai saw more productivity and coding queries, while Meta’s apps focused on emotional support and quick information. Meta conducts rigorous testing with each new market and feature introduction to assess effectiveness and identify areas for enhancement.
