Meta AI Hits 1 Billion Monthly Users, Zuckerberg Announces

SAN FRANCISCO: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg highlighted the rapid adoption of the company’s generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) assistant, revealing that it is now used by a billion people each month across Meta’s platforms.

Speaking at Meta’s annual shareholder meeting, Zuckerberg emphasized the milestone as the company competes with Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and others in the Gen AI space.

The extent of active engagement with Meta AI remains unclear, as it is integrated into various features across Meta’s apps, making it accessible to users both actively and passively.

Meanwhile, Google’s AI Overviews, introduced a year ago, have surpassed 1.5 billion users, according to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. He described the feature as bringing Gen AI to more people than any other product globally.

Google’s AI Overviews provide automated summaries of search results, replacing the traditional format of displaying pages of blue links. Additionally, Pichai noted that Google’s Gemini AI app has exceeded 400 million monthly users.

As AI adoption accelerates, major tech firms continue to release new AI-driven products, despite ongoing concerns about misinformation, business models, and broader societal impacts.

Meta recently launched its first standalone AI assistant app on April 29, offering users direct access to its Gen AI models.

“A billion people are using Meta AI across our apps now, so we made a new standalone Meta AI app for you to check out,” Zuckerberg announced in a video posted on Instagram.

He described the app as a personalized AI assistant, primarily designed for voice interactions tailored to individual users.

Meta’s chief financial officer, Susan Li, noted that WhatsApp is currently experiencing the fastest growth in Meta AI usage.

“Our focus this year is deepening the experience and making Meta AI the leading personal AI,” Zuckerberg stated during Meta’s quarterly earnings announcement.