Meta Platforms, Inc. META is making a significant push into the AI assistant market, aiming to surpass competitors like Apple Inc.‘s AAPL Siri, Alphabet Inc. GOOG, GOOG subsidiary Google’s Assistant, Amazon.com Inc.‘s AMZN Alexa, OpenAI‘s ChatGPT and Microsoft Corp.‘s MSFT Copilot,
What Happened: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed during the company’s second-quarter earnings call that Meta AI “is on track to achieve our goal of becoming the most used AI assistant by the end of the year.”
Zuckerberg emphasized Meta’s strategy to integrate AI across its platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. He highlighted the rapid progress and improvements in Meta AI’s intelligence and features.
Meta’s unique approach involves an open-source model with its Llama foundation models, which Zuckerberg believes will accelerate innovation and enhance safety in AI development.
Additionally, Meta has launched AI Studio, a platform enabling users to create their own AI agents. Zuckerberg noted the importance of allowing people to create multiple AIs, not just a single assistant.
While Meta AI is still in its early stages, the company reports promising engagement metrics. “People have used Meta AI for billions of queries since we first introduced it,” Susan Li, Meta’s CFO, revealed during the call.
The company is also investing heavily in infrastructure to support its AI ambitions, with significant capital expenditures expected in 2025 to build out AI capacity.
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Why It Matters Meta’s aggressive push into the AI assistant market comes at a time when competitors are also ramping up their efforts. In May, Apple Inc. announced plans to overhaul Siri, enabling the assistant to control individual app functions using voice commands. This overhaul required a revamp of Siri's underlying software using large language models, a core technology behind generative AI.
In June, Amazon.com Inc. revealed plans for a major Alexa overhaul, integrating conversational generative AI. The project, known internally as "Banyan," will introduce a two-tier system with a premium version potentially costing around $5 monthly. This marks the first major update to the voice assistant since its 2014 launch.
Meta’s AI assistant, powered by the newly launched Llama 3 model, has also integrated real-time search results from Google and Bing. This integration is a significant departure from the usual approach adopted by these tech giants, according to Josh Brown, CEO of Ritholtz Wealth Management.
Meanwhile, Meta's second-quarter performance has been impressive, with the company beating analyst estimates on both revenue and EPS. This marks the sixth consecutive quarter of surpassing expectations.
The company reported a revenue of $39.07 billion, surpassing the estimated $38.31 billion, and an adjusted EPS of $5.16, beating the estimated $4.73.
Price Action: Meta shares jumped 7.17% in after-hours trading, reaching $508.87 at the time of writing. The regular session on Wednesday ended with a 2.51% increase, closing at $474.83, according to Benzinga Pro.
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This story was generated using Benzinga Neuro and edited by Kaustubh Bagalkote
© 2024 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
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