fb launches AI based ‘M’ assistant on Messenger

Furthering its AI ambitions, Facebook has announced ‘M’ for the Messenger app, letting customers do a variety of tasks using just their voice or text. This is Facebook’s way of competing with multiple companies who have their own AI offerings out there. 

This new AI assistant lets you send money to your contacts, book a cab for yourself, and even share your location with contacts for a preset duration. Naturally, it’s only limited to the U.S. as of now, although one expects to see it in all major global markets over the coming weeks. It’s still one of those early implementations, so the functionality will be pretty limited at this point. 

However, since Facebook has a dedicated team working on AI, we can expect more features to be added overtime. Speaking on the new addition, Facebook product managers Laurent Landowski and Kemal El Moujahid said the following in a blog, “We are bringing the power of M's AI technology to support and enhance the Messenger experience and make it more useful, personal and seamless.” 

With AI being pushed heavily, it makes sense for Facebook to jump on board. The company has been developing M since the past couple of years, which means this is not a sudden decision for the social media giant. Samsung is the newest kid on the block with the introduction of the Bixby voice assistant with the Galaxy S8 and the S8+.

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