On Friday, people around the web noticed a new addition to their Instagram: Meta AI, the company’s general-purpose, AI-powered chatbot that can answer questions, write poetry, and generate images with a simple text prompt. The move isn’t surprising as Meta revealed Meta AI in September 2023 and has spent the last few months adding the chatbot to products like Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, so adding it to Instagram seems like a no-brainer.
Meta AI Expands its Reach
Meta’s ongoing efforts to infuse AI into its ecosystem have reached a new milestone with the introduction of Meta AI into Instagram DMs. Initially announced in September 2023, Meta AI has progressively made its presence felt across Meta-owned platforms, including Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. Now, users on Instagram can engage with the chatbot directly from their DM inbox, expanding the scope of AI-driven interactions within the social media landscape.
A Unified Experience
Despite the distinct environments of various Meta platforms, Meta AI’s functionality remains consistent. Users can transition from chatting with the bot on WhatsApp to engaging with it on Instagram, experiencing a unified AI experience across Meta’s digital ecosystem; this integration streamlines user interactions by offering a cohesive AI interface regardless of the platform.
Tapping it starts a conversation with Meta AI, as the user would DM a friend on Instagram it was able to ask the chatbot to give me definitions of words, suggest headlines for some stories the user is working on, and generate images of dogs on skateboards. He was also able to ask Meta AI to recommend Reels with cats in them, which it was able to do easily.
But when a Meta user Aaron Souppouris asked the bot in WhatsApp to recommend Reels, it showed him some Reels in that app too — suggesting that the bot in Instagram isn’t really doing anything specific to Instagram. Instead, Meta is simply shoehorning the same chatbot into every app it owns. If you tap a hamburger menu within the bot, it will also show you a long list of possible actions you ask the bot to take.
I do not know why you would want a chatbot in Instagram to suggest tips for dealing with credit card debit, debate cardio versus weights, or suggest hacks to travel with points. But the point is that if you want to, you can.
Read more: Meta Introduces ChatGPT-Style AI Chatbot Across WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook
