Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg makes a keynote speech during the Meta Connect annual event, at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.
Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters
Meta Platforms is launching a stand-alone artificial intelligence app and going head-to-head with ChatGPT maker OpenAI.
The new AI assistant offering will run on Meta’s Llama AI model, the company said Tuesday. It includes a Discover feed that shows how others are interacting with the tool and offer prompts.
The news confirms previous CNBC reporting from February, citing sources familiar with the matter. Meta’s new app directly competes with other AI platforms such as ChatGPT as the AI arms race intensifies. Other key competitors include Anthropic’s Claude, xAI’s Grok and Google’s Gemini.
Meta launched an AI chatbot in September 2023, pitching it as a generative AI-powered digital assistant that can provide responses and create images based on user prompts within its existing apps. The company brought Meta AI to the forefront of its apps in April, when it replaced the search feature for Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger with the chatbot.
Zuckerberg in January said he believes 2025 “is going to be the year when a highly intelligent and personalized AI assistant reaches more than 1 billion people, and I expect Meta AI to be that leading AI assistant.”
As of January, Meta AI had roughly 700 million monthly active users, Meta finance chief Susan Li said at the time. That was up from 600 million in December.
Meta’s debut of a stand-alone Meta AI app follows similar efforts by Google and Elon Musk’s xAI. Those two companies recently released individual apps for their respective digital assistants Gemini and Grok.
The event comes as Meta hosts its inaugural LlamaCon developer event at its Menlo Park, California, headquarters for its Llama family of AI models. Investors are on the lookout for signs that Meta’s AI investments are having an immediate business impact. In January, the company announced plans to spend as much as $65 billion this year to expand its AI infrastructure.
Meta will report its first-quarter earnings on Wednesday.
— CNBC’s Jonathan Vanian contributed reporting.
