Meta Platforms has officially launched its highly anticipated standalone AI application, "Meta AI," marking a significant step in the rapidly evolving landscape of conversational AI. The unveiling coincided with Meta's inaugural AI developer conference, LlamaCon 2025, where CEO Mark Zuckerberg engaged in a fireside chat with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, discussing the future of AI and its potential impact on society.
The Meta AI app, built upon Meta's proprietary Llama 4 large language model, aims to provide users with a personalized and intuitive AI assistant. Zuckerberg has stated his ambition for 2025 to be the year a highly intelligent and personalized AI assistant reaches over a billion people, and Meta AI is positioned as a key player in achieving this goal. The app is designed to be a central hub for all AI interactions, offering features distinct from the AI functionalities already integrated into platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.
One of the app's key features is the "Discover" feed, a social component that allows users to explore how others are utilizing Meta AI. This feed showcases prompts, questions, and AI-generated content shared by users, fostering a collaborative and engaging environment. Users can remix existing prompts or share their own creations, adding a unique social dimension to the AI experience. Meta emphasizes that the AI is designed to learn user preferences, providing more helpful and tailored responses over time. The integration of Facebook and Instagram accounts, through Meta's Account Center, further enhances personalization by leveraging user data, such as liked posts and profile information, to refine the AI's understanding of individual needs.
The Meta AI app also boasts advanced voice chat capabilities powered by Llama 4 and full-duplex speech technology. This allows for more natural and fluid back-and-forth conversations, although this feature is currently in early testing and limited to specific regions. The full-duplex speech technology enables a more human-like interaction, where the AI generates voice directly instead of simply reading written responses.
During LlamaCon 2025, the discussion between Zuckerberg and Nadella centered on the transformative power of AI and its potential to revolutionize various aspects of life. They touched upon topics ranging from AI development and deployment strategies to the ethical considerations surrounding the technology. Both CEOs emphasized the importance of responsible AI development and the need for collaboration across the industry to ensure AI benefits all of humanity.
The launch of the Meta AI app places Meta in direct competition with other AI chatbot providers, including OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, and xAI's Grok. It also mirrors recent moves by Google and xAI to introduce their own dedicated mobile apps for their AI assistants. Furthermore, the Meta AI app consolidates the AI experience for Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses users, replacing the former Meta View app and allowing users to seamlessly transition between voice conversations on their glasses and the app's interface.
However, recent reports have highlighted potential privacy concerns associated with the Meta AI app. It has been discovered that some users have inadvertently made their chatbot conversations public through the "Discover" feed, exposing sensitive information such as addresses and details about court cases. While Meta provides methods for deleting such posts, the incident underscores the importance of user awareness and clear communication regarding data privacy settings. As of June 2025, the app has been downloaded approximately 6.5 million times since its launch in late April.
