Mark Zuckerberg says Meta wants to “introduce AI agents to billions of people”

Meta sees “a chance to introduce AI brokers to billions of individuals in ways in which might be helpful and significant,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg advised traders immediately.

Whereas he was obscure about how precisely Meta will add generative AI to its apps, Zuckerberg gave probably the most detailed preview but throughout the firm’s earnings name for the primary quarter of this yr, when it reported $28.6 billion in income and a document 2 billion day by day customers of the Fb app, beating Wall Avenue’s estimates. Meta’s revenue for the quarter was $5.7 billion, a 24 % lower from the identical time final yr.

“We’re exploring chat experiences in WhatsApp and Messenger, visible creation instruments for posts in Fb and Instagram and adverts, and over time video and multi-modal experiences as properly,” Zuckerberg mentioned on the earnings name. “I anticipate that these instruments might be beneficial for everybody from common folks to creators to companies. For instance, I anticipate that lots of curiosity in AI brokers for enterprise messaging and buyer help will come as soon as we nail that have. Over time, this can prolong to our work on the metaverse, too, the place folks will rather more simply be capable of create avatars, objects, worlds, and code to tie all of them collectively.”

With the distraction of the corporate rebrand and Zuckerberg’s deal with the metaverse, Meta initially dragged its ft on constructing the infrastructure it must help these sorts of AI options, main it to spend billions of {dollars} on rehauling its information facilities in current quarters. At present, Zuckerberg mentioned that “we’re not behind in constructing our AI infrastructure” and teased that generative AI merchandise might be launched within the coming months.

The unprecedented success of OpenAI’s ChatGPT has made generative AI the tech development du jour, with Google, Meta, and smaller gamers like Snap now racing to construct competing purposes. Whereas Meta launched an AI language mannequin referred to as LLaMA to researchers earlier this yr, it has but to debut something resembling ChatGPT in a method that’s broadly accessible.

It appears like that received’t be the case for for much longer. Zuckerberg mentioned immediately that generative AI is “actually going to the touch each single one among our merchandise” and hinted at how the expertise might particularly pace up WhatsApp’s nascent buyer help enterprise. “When you mild up the power for tens of hundreds of thousands of AI brokers performing on their behalf, you’ll have far more companies that may afford to have folks partaking in chat,” he mentioned.

Whereas Meta could also be pivoting to AI like the remainder of the business, it isn’t giving up on the metaverse, in response to Zuckerberg. He mentioned the “narrative that has developed that Meta is shifting away from the metaverse” is “not correct,” as evidenced by the deliberate debut of the subsequent Quest VR headset later this yr. Meta’s Actuality Labs division reported a internet lack of $4 billion final quarter, and the corporate mentioned it expects “working losses to extend yr over yr in 2023.”

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