• Mark Zuckerberg has given a rough overview of how Meta will implement AI into its products.
• This includes enhancing chat experiences, creating Instagram filters and improving advertising.
• No mention is made of using AI in the Metaverse.

The metaverse may have been the conversation point for much of big tech in 2022, but that was ages ago. Okay so in reality it was just two months ago, but now generative artificial intelligence is the new thing.

While that sucks for the likes of Meta which threw its weight into developing a workspace that nobody wanted to work in, and has now seemingly been forgotten, Mark Zuckerberg took to his Facebook profile to outline the firm’s plans as regards AI.

“We’re creating a new top-level product group at Meta focused on generative AI to turbocharge our work in this area. We’re starting by pulling together a lot of the teams working on generative AI across the company into one group focused on building delightful experiences around this technology into all of our different products,” Zuckerberg said in the post.

Meta joins the likes of Microsoft and Google which are incorporating generative AI into their products. Microsoft has the new Bing and Edge browser which are powered by OpenAI’s tech including ChatGPT. Google meanwhile introduced Bard earlier this month, but that launch was marred by a massive loss in the value of Alphabet’s stock following a mistake making its way to an advert.

What would Meta’s implementation of AI look like?

For now Zuckerberg says his team will focus on building “creative and expressive tools”. In future however, we could see AI in Instagram, WhatsApp and other Meta products.

“Over the longer term, we’ll focus on developing AI personas that can help people in a variety of ways. We’re exploring experiences with text (like chat in WhatsApp and Messenger), with images (like creative Instagram filters and ad formats), and with video and multi-modal experiences. We have a lot of foundational work to do before getting to the really futuristic experiences, but I’m excited about all of the new things we’ll build along the way,” the Meta founder wrote.

Truth be told, that’s not really all that much to go on. This also isn’t especially new for Meta or as it was formerly known, Facebook. The firm has offered the ability to build chatbots into Messenger since 2016 so this generative AI play feels more like an extension of that functionality.

Further to this, Motley Fool reported in October last year that Meta was betting big on AI helping it’s ailing advertising business.

This however, came before Meta let go of 11 000 employees in November with more cuts expected this year.

It’s not clear if Meta intends to use a firm such as OpenAI or if it intends to develop its solutions in-house.