• Reports suggest that Meta is considering the launch of a standalone Meta AI app.
• This would open the path to monetisation for Meta’s AI platform similar to what OpenAI and Microsoft offer.
• Meta AI is currently available via WhatsApp, Facebook and Messenger.

Not content with only squeezing its AI chatbot into every platform it can feasibly squeeze the bot into, Meta wants to launch a standalone AI app later this year.

At present, Meta’s AI solution is available exclusively through Messenger, WhatsApp and Facebook which does limit its potential reach to those users. Sure, Meta has billions of people using at least one of its apps daily but as with all Silicon Valley endeavours, the ceiling on how many users one should have is the size of the human population.

As reported by CNBC citing anonymous sources, Meta is looking at launching a standalone AI app in the second quarter of the year. This would also turn Meta AI into an app that could more easily be integrated into other projects like the Meta glasses from Ray-Ban or the foolhardy investment that is the Metaverse.

A standalone app could also potentially give Meta an avenue to monetise its AI platform more easily by offering subscriptions similar to OpenAI and Microsoft. This conversation seems to be happening already per the CNBC report and frankly it’s one that makes sense. Meta is looking down the barrel of a copyright lawsuit from authors who allege, among other things, that Meta pirated over 80 terabytes of content that was used to train its AI model.

Meta chief executive officer, Mark Zuckerberg has high hopes for AI this year.

“We have a really exciting roadmap for this year with a unique vision focused on personalization. We believe that people don’t all want to use the same AI – people want their AI to be personalized to their context, their interests, their personality, their culture, and how they think about the world. I don’t think that there’s just going to be one big AI that everyone uses that does the same thing,” Zuckerberg told investors earlier this year.

With that in mind, a standalone Meta AI app makes even more sense. Adding a large degree of customisation to existing apps sounds like it would introduce a lot of complexity to the infrastructure of the existing Meta app. Having a Meta AI app that can be used to tweak and customise the bot across all of your Meta profiles is a bit of friction for users but could help reduce the potential for bloat in WhatsApp for example.

The news of a standalone app for Meta AI comes hot on the heels of reports that Reels may be spun off as its own thing. With the future of TikTok in the US currently an unknown quantity, Reels and YouTube are currently the best alternatives for creators and users, even if they aren’t as feature rich.

Maybe a Reels-only app will change that.