Meta Challenges OpenAI’s Social Media Plans, Launches AI App to Rival ChatGPT
Meta has released the first version of its standalone Meta AI app, designed to offer a personalised assistant experience across devices, including Meta’s AI-powered Ray-Ban glasses and the web. The app features voice-based interaction, contextual memory, and a Discover feed to explore how users are using AI. The new app is built on Meta’s Llama 4 model and connects to the broader Meta AI ecosystem that spans WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger. It serves as the new companion app for Ray-Ban Meta glasses, replacing the previous Meta View app. “Meta AI is built to get to know you, so its answers are more helpful. It’s easy to talk to, so it’s more seamless and natural to interact with,” the company said. The app supports voice and text conversations, image generation and editing, and includes a full-duplex speech demo. This demo generates voice responses directly from conversational dialogue rather than reading prewritten text, though it does not support real-time web access. It is currently available in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. “We wanted to provide a glimpse into the future by letting people experiment with this,” Meta stated, acknowledging potential technical issues with the demo version. Personalised responses are available in the US and Canada. Meta AI can remember user preferences and draw from connected Facebook and Instagram accounts to improve relevance. “You can tell Meta AI to remember certain things about you… and it can also pick up important details based on context,” the company noted. A Discover feed within the app enables users to explore and share prompts. “Nothing is shared to your feed unless you choose to post it,” Meta added. Meta AI is also being integrated into the web interface, which has been updated with voice interaction and image generation features. In select countries, Meta is testing a document editor that lets users generate text-and-image documents for export and supports document uploads for AI analysis. Meta confirmed that all existing Ray-Ban Meta glasses users will see their paired devices and settings automatically transferred to the new app. “Glasses have emerged as the most exciting new hardware category of the AI era,” Meta stated, noting that users can start a conversation on their glasses and continue it via the app or web, though not the other way around. The app includes a control to toggle the “Ready to talk” feature, allowing voice input by default. Meta said the goal is to make voice “the most intuitive way to interact with Meta AI.” According to a recent report, OpenAI is developing a new social media platform that includes AI features. The platform, which is reportedly in the prototype stage, will combine a social feed with ChatGPT’s image generation tools. Users will be able to create and share visuals like anime-style images and infographics directly in the feed, focusing on co-creating content with AI. Addressing a recent TED talk, OpenAI chief Sam Altman revealed that ChatGPT has currently reached 500 million weekly active users, including both free and paid subscribers. In comparison, WhatsApp reached 500 million monthly active users in April 2014, nearly five years after its launch in November 2009. In December last year, Meta announced that Meta AI has nearly 600 million monthly active users.
The app supports voice and text conversations, image generation and editing, and includes a full-duplex speech demo.
Meta has released the first version of its standalone Meta AI app, designed to offer a personalised assistant experience across devices, including Meta’s AI-powered Ray-Ban glasses and the web.
["Meta"]
["Go", "ChatGPT", "Meta", "Meta AI", "OpenAI", "AI", "Llama 4", "ML", "GPT", "Ray", "R"]
["AI", "ML", "ChatGPT", "OpenAI", "Llama 4", "Meta AI", "Ray", "R", "Go", "GPT"]
Siddharth is a media graduate who loves to explore tech through journalism and putting forward ideas worth pondering about in the era of artificial intelligence.