Mark Zuckerberg-helmed Meta has announced it is testing ‘more than 20 ways’ to make generative artificial intelligence (AI) to improve user experience on its messaging platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.
“It’s been an incredible year for AI at Meta…we can’t wait for what’s to come next year with AI advancements in content generation, voice, and multimodality that will enable us to deliver new creative and immersive applications. Today, we’re sharing updates to some of our core AI experiences and new capabilities you can discover across our family of apps,” the tech giant said in a December 6 press release.
An ‘evolved’ Meta AI
The company’s virtual assistant is now more helpful, with more detailed responses on mobile and more accurate summaries of search results.
To interact with the virtual assistant, users must start a new message, and select ‘Create an AI chat’ on Meta’s messaging apps, or type “@MetaAI” in a group chat, followed by what they would like the assistant to help with.
‘Reimagine’
This new Meta AI feature is for Messenger and Instagram. In a group chat, Meta AI will generate and share the initial image requested by a user, then a friend can press and hold on the picture to riff on it with a simple text prompt and Meta AI will generate an entirely new image.
Reels
With this, people can discover and experience new content through more than just the text, i.e., Reels. For example, when planning to visit a place with friends, just ask Meta AI to recommend the best places to visit, and share Reels of the top sites to decide which attractions are must-sees.
Helping creators respond to fans
Under this, when Instagram creators open a message in their DMs, the assistant (Meta AI) will work in the background to draft relevant replies for consideration, taking into account tone and content.
Use ‘Imagine’ outside Meta AI
This text-to-image generation feature, used to make fun and creative content in chats, is now being expanded to outside of chats. For now, only in the United States, Imagine can be also be accessed on imagine.meta.com.
Chatting with AIs
While two of Meta’s sports-related AIs (Bru and Perry) have been serving Bing-powered responses since day one, the functionality will now also be available with other AIs: Coco, Izzy, Jade, Lorena, and Luiz.
Another ability being tested will see people resume their work on a particular AI from where they left off.
More to come…
The social media giant will, in the coming weeks, add invisible watermarking to Imagine, doing so to ensure increased transparency and traceability.
Also, it will continue to invest in red teaming, which it says has been a part of its culture ‘for years.’