Meta is preparing to launch a standalone Meta AI app in the second quarter, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg aiming to become the chatbot market leader by year's end.
CNBC reports that people close to the company revealed Meta's plans to release an independent Meta AI app during the second quarter. The app is positioned to become the company's fourth major platform alongside Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
This move aligns with Zuckerberg's goal to overtake competitors like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, establishing Meta as the dominant AI company before 2025 ends. Zuckerberg believes a chatbot could reach up to one billion users this year.
Building on open source success
Meta has already seen notable success in open-source communities with its Llama models. An independent AI ecosystem has emerged around these models, benefiting Meta's own AI products—including Meta AI, which is currently only available through integration in Meta's social apps and on a dedicated website. Meta AI is not yet available in the EU due to data protection regulations.
According to CNBC's sources, Meta plans to follow OpenAI and Google's lead by introducing a paid subscription service for Meta AI. This would offer users access to more powerful versions of their chatbot for a monthly fee.
Despite facing strong competition, ChatGPT maintains its position as the clear leader in AI-based general-purpose chatbots. OpenAI also dominates the market for AI models accessed through programming interfaces, partly thanks to its partnership with Microsoft.
However, language models are becoming increasingly commoditized, making it difficult for OpenAI to differentiate its chatbot product clearly. While OpenAI enjoys first-mover advantage and strong brand recognition, competitors such as Meta, Google and Apple already have significant distribution advantages thanks to their existing user bases. Google, for example, offers its Gemini chatbot as a native assistant on Android devices.
Meta reports that Meta AI already has 700 million monthly active users, though this figure is somewhat misleading due to its integration within Meta's social platforms. More meaningful metrics would compare usage intensity with ChatGPT.
Like other chatbot services, Meta AI has previously faced criticism for spreading misinformation, something that bothered yesterday's Mark Zuckerberg but won't bother today's Mark Zuckerberg.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman jokingly (?) responded to news of a standalone Meta AI app by suggesting that OpenAI could launch its own social media app: "lol if facebook tries to come at us and we just uno reverse them it would be so funny."
