Meta unveils new AI assistant built on Llama 3 model

Meta Platforms (META) has launched its free AI assistant across all of its social media platforms. The virtual chatbot is powered by Meta's own AI model Llama 3 as it seeks to enable users to ask questions and engage in conversations. Yahoo Finance Tech Editor Dan Howley breaks down the functions of this new feature.

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This post was written by Angel Smith

Video transcript

MARK ZUCKERBERG: We are releasing the new version of Meta AI, our assistant that you can ask any question across our apps and glasses. And our goal is to build the world's leading AI and make it available to everyone.

- I didn't have quite enough time for me to go out and get a t-shirt and a chain to match Zuck's look there. That was Mark Zuckerberg introducing the company's new AI assistant. I can only imagine how much the quality of the comments on Instagram are going up as a result of this. Dan Howley joins us now to discuss. All right. I know that we'll get into the Llama name later, I guess. What's the TLDR on the rest of Zuckerberg's little spiel that he had there [INAUDIBLE]?

DAN HOWLEY: Looking very bro-ly. I'll just throw it out there.

- I mean, he is in a bro moment.

DAN HOWLEY: He's full-bro mode MMA.

- He's going for it like--

JULIE HYMAN: This is bro era.

- You know, before I had $50 million or whatever, I couldn't do this, and now I'm just I get the full sense.

DAN HOWLEY: I'm cool like everyone else, even though I'm richer than everyone.

- Yeah.

DAN HOWLEY: OK. So this, what we really are talking about, is basically, they're rolling out the latest version of their large language model that they have. It's called Llama 3. And they're putting it into what they have called Meta AI, which is basically their AI chatbot that they have, across all of their services, whether that's Instagram, Messenger, Facebook Blue-- proper Facebook is what, and WhatsApp. And you may have seen it already. It'll show up in the top-right corner of the screen.

They also have meta.ai, a website where you can chat with this bot and then basically ask it what you want. They say that it's basically an all-purpose bot. They're open-sourcing this. Open source is good because that means-- generally good because that means that it can be vetted easily, and people can kind of go through it and see where the issues and errors are. And it's-- yeah, it's-- Right, yeah. I got it in the top corner of my screen.

It's interesting that they're doing this, that they're getting into these kinds of general AI chatbot. Because when I think of general AI bots, I would think search, right? So I don't know how that really fits into me liking pictures of pancakes.

- Yeah. I mean, I guess my thought on this is well, one, since they have all the content that's on all of their different family of apps, there's no issue there about using that content to feed the language model. So you have that lack of conflict. Now, obviously, the volume is not as large as like the whole internet, which is what Google is going for.

JULIE HYMAN: It's so pretty big.

- It's not nothing. It's definitely not nothing. And I also wonder how is the ability for Meta to use tech parlance dogfood, all the different ways that it could actually be useful for users. Do they have a faster feedback mechanism than some other companies who are hoping users at a large enough volume use certain features to then see what the utility is? Whereas, here, you know, I'm a small business owner. I have an Instagram page. I'm selling a thing. I'm going to say AI will use my interaction with customers, et cetera, et cetera. It works. It doesn't. And then you do that tens of thousands, millions of times, and you get a lot of information.

DAN HOWLEY: Well, look, this-- OK. This is new and it's not, right? I don't know if you remember in the 20-- teens, they had rolled out chatbots as well. I think it was M, maybe something like that. I don't remember what exactly their chatbot was then, but it was supposed to be the end all be all, right? And you were supposed to be able to chat with it, and then you chat with Uber, for instance, or chat with another app and you'd be able to, you know, do whatever you wanted. And that fell flat on its face because it just didn't work well.

So it's not as though these chatbot things are necessarily new. It's the generative AI aspect of it. Now, to your question as to, you know, the dogfooding and, you know, whether it's small business owners are going to be able to use this and then get a lot of utility at it, I think it really remains to be seen because they certainly didn't get a lot out of the original chatbot idea. So I think, you know, what they're really doing is ensuring that they're in the race. They're a big name that you talk about when it comes to AI. Investors love AI, so you've got to be up with AI.

- Stocks up. [INAUDIBLE] half today.

DAN HOWLEY: And, I mean--

JULIE HYMAN: But like-- just real quick, two seconds. If you go on there, what do you-- what would you even ask it?

DAN HOWLEY: I mean, like I'm not-- that's my thing and maybe--

JULIE HYMAN: Like, show me cute dogs from whatever or whatever?

DAN HOWLEY: Right. I mean, that would be on Instagram. Sure, if you want to look for something like that. That would make sense. But for me, it's not something-- if I'm going to do shopping, I'm going to go on Amazon. I'm going to go on Google, right? That makes sense. I'm not going to look-- I buy a lot of video game stuff, right? I'm not going to look on Instagram and say, show me a video game stuff.

JULIE HYMAN: Oh, but there are a lot of Instagram shoppers out there.

DAN HOWLEY: Oh, I know. I know. My wife does it.

JULIE HYMAN: OK.

DAN HOWLEY: I might do it sometimes for Simpson's stuff, whatever.

[LAUGHING]

JULIE HYMAN: Dan, thanks a lot. To be continued.