Transcript:
Conway Gittens: Get ready for a new app from Mark Zuckerberg and Meta. In an attempt to capitalize on what he hopes will be growing interest in artificial intelligence by everyday people, Zuckerberg is planning to launch a separate AI app to go along with Facebook, Instagram and What’s App.
According to CNBC, the launch is being targeted for sometime within the April to June period. The company is hoping to steal thunder from OpenAi, which has the wind at its back with the advantage of being the first to become a household name thanks to ChatGPT.
Related: Meta scales back a major employee perk amid layoffs
Meta is going to be in a crowded field of competitors trying to grab attention and eyeballs, and it’s not yet clear if there will be enough of those to go around. Of course, there’s OpenAI - add to that offerings from Microsoft, Elon Musk’s xAI, Anthropic, and Alphabet, the parent of the ubiquitous search app Google.
Sources familiar with the confidential project told CNBC there’s likely to be a paid version, where users get charged a monthly fee to get access to a more powerful AI functionality. OpenAi’s ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Co-Pilot already have paid upgrades.
Zuckerberg has lofty ambitions as he predicts the market for personalized AI assistants will top 1 billion people this year and he said “I expect Meta AI to be that leading AI assistant.” While people can already use Meta AI on a website or through Meta’s popular apps like Facebook and What’sApp, a standalone app would give Zuckerberg even greater reach.
That’ll do it for your Daily Briefing. From the New York Stock Exchange, I’m Conway Gittens with TheStreet.
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