Athira Sethu
Kochi, 24 December 2024
OpenAI has launched its ChatGPT on WhatsApp, which may prove a challenge to Meta’s own plans for its AI assistant, which the Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, said would become the world’s most popular consumer chatbot.
WhatsApp is among the most widely used messaging applications globally, especially in countries like India, Brazil, and Mexico. Those are also key markets for Meta, where its AI assistant is gaining popularity.
Meta’s AI assistant is growing fast. As the Vice President of GenAI at Meta, Ahmad Al-Dahle states that India and Mexico have become two of the biggest markets for Meta AI and that the assistant will end this year with 600 million active users. It is available in 43 countries and supports several languages.
The launch of ChatGPT in WhatsApp might slow down Meta’s growth in those regions, though. OpenAI company launched a WhatsApp business account lately: 1-800-CHATGPT. That may lower the level of expansion for Meta with regards to its AI assistant by many more WhatsApp users.
The key advantage of Meta lies in having the biggest and most popular social media platforms in place, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. However, OpenAI has a great reputation for the product and has a vast-paying customer base, hence giving OpenAI a significant challenge at Meta.
ChatGPT has launched a WhatsApp business account, but it remains unclear whether it will start generating revenue for Meta. The reason is that user-generated conversations with ChatGPT do not cost businesses anything. Meta does not charge for chats between businesses and users, so direct money generation from the WhatsApp account of ChatGPT is unlikely.
However, some analysts believe Meta might revise its strategy to create some new categories for discussions about chatbots.
