Meta Launches Standalone AI Chatbot App Designed for Conversational Use

Meta has launched a new, separate AI chatbot app, essentially its own version of ChatGPT, which it hopes will help conquer rivals in the AI race.

Well, it’s kind of new. Meta’s “Meta AI” app is actually a renamed “Meta View”, which is the companion app for Meta’s Ray Ban Stories smart glasses. Now, they’ll be one and the same, with Meta seeking to enhance the usage of AI on the go, with a constant personalized companion.

As explained by Meta:

“We’re launching a new Meta AI app built with Llama 4, a first step toward building a more personal AI. People around the world use Meta AI daily across WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and Messenger. And now, people can choose to experience a personal AI designed around voice conversations with Meta AI inside a standalone app.”

So it’s Meta’s AI chatbot, in a separate app, though Meta says that the new system will be more structured for conversation and back-and-forth engagement:

“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. It’s more social, so it can show you things from the people and places you care about.”

Yeah, I’m not sure this is the selling point that Meta thinks, especially considering the issues Meta’s AI bot is already having in facilitating sexual chats with teens.

Add to this concerns around the persuasiveness of AI chatbots, and the capacity for people to develop real relationships with these non-human entities, and the implications for more personalized, conversational engagement with AI, at any time, seem pretty concerning.  

But progress is king, I guess, and as Meta fights other AI providers for supremacy, it’s prioritizing development, and focusing on the positives, in favor of its own goals.

“We’ve also included a voice demo built with full-duplex speech technology, that you can toggle on and off to test. This technology will deliver a more natural voice experience trained on conversational dialogue, so the AI is generating voice directly instead of reading written responses.”

Yeah, I really feel like Meta isn’t thinking this through, or we aren’t considering the mental health impacts that more conversational, personalized AI assistants are going to have. Like, I understand the push for advancement, but are we sure this is an actual good thing, that won’t be misused, or exacerbate the current loneliness epidemic that’s already causing major impacts around the world?

“We’re using our decades of work personalizing people’s experiences on our platforms to make Meta AI more personal. You can tell Meta AI to remember certain things about you (like that you love to travel and learn new languages), and it can also pick up important details based on context. Your Meta AI assistant also delivers more relevant answers to your questions by drawing on information you’ve already chosen to share on Meta products, like your profile, and content you like or engage with.”

Sure. Okay.

Despite these concerns, there will be benefits in having an easily accessible AI chatbot at any time, and as more people buy Meta’s smart glasses, you can see how this will help to boost interest in its hardware products.

There will be benefits, but I maintain that this is going to be a bigger issue, that we’ll see regulatory bodies looking to address in retrospect.

Meta’s also adding an element to help you better understand how you can use its AI bot:

“The Meta AI app includes a Discover feed, a place to share and explore how others are using AI. You can see the best prompts people are sharing, or remix them to make them your own.”

So now, you’ll be able to see what other people are using AI for, which could help to inform your approach. 

Finally, Meta’s also updating its Meta AI website, so you can better interact with its latest chatbot via the web.

“The web interface has been optimized for larger screens and desktop workflows and includes an improved image generation experience, with more presets and new options for modifying style, mood, lighting and colors. We’re also testing a rich document editor in select countries, one that you can use to generate documents full of text and images and then export those documents as PDFs. And we’re testing the ability to import documents for Meta AI to analyze and understand.”

There are clearly beneficial elements here, despite the concerns, and I do think that AI tools, overall, will provide transformational assistance, in a range of ways.

It just seems like the push to “win” the AI race could be edging things beyond what we understand, in terms of implications and impacts. And that could be a bigger problem than seemingly anticipated.

Meta’s new AI app is now available on iOS and Android. Voice conversations are available in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, while personalized responses are only available to users in the US and Canada to begin with.