Meta launches a standalone AI app to compete with OpenAI and Google

Meta, Facebook parent company, on Tuesday launched a standalone app for its Meta AI assistant, similar to those offered by Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Alphabet’s Google.

The Meta standalone app comes as the company looks to boost its AI assistant’s usage, apart from being available within the company’s family of platforms – WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and Messenger.

This also signals the CEO, Mark Zuckerberg move to strengthen the company’s position in the competitive AI landscape, taking on major rivals such as OpenAI and Google.

Meta’s separate app is designed to provide more personalized responses based on context and other user-specific elements related to the user’s Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Llama 4, Meta’s latest large language model, powers the Meta AI assistant and is designed to rival the latest AI models from OpenAI, Google, Deepseek and Anthropic, with improved reasoning, multilingual capabilities and efficiency.

The new AI app will also integrate with Meta’s AI glasses and merge with the existing companion app, the company said.

According to a Reuters report in February, the company will start testing a paid subscription for the AI chatbot’s advanced versions in the second quarter.

However, the subscription service might not rake in meaningful revenue until next year at the earliest, a source had said.

Meta AI, which was launched in September 2023, is a virtual assistant that uses large language models to perform reasoning tasks.