Meta released a standalone app for its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot, Meta AI, on Tuesday. The new Meta AI app is available on Android via the Play Store and iOS via the App Store. The Menlo Park-based tech giant has added a social element to the app, where one can see others users’ posts and images in a Discover feed. Additionally, the company is introducing a voice mode where users can have a two-way verbal conversation with the chatbot. The voice experience is currently available in only select countries.
In a newsroom post, the tech giant announced the launch of the Meta AI app and detailed its new features. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had previously stated that the company was working on a standalone AI app. The standalone AI app is powered by the Llama 4 AI model and competes with the likes of ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok, and Claude.
The Meta AI app is designed to be a social experience. It comes with a Discover feed where users can share and explore their experience with the chatbot. Users can share prompts and Meta AI’s responses or images generated using AI. Additionally, they can also like and comment on others’ posts or remix them to use their prompts. The tech giant says nothing is shared to the feed unless the user chooses to post something.
Meta AI’s Discover feed
Photo Credit: Meta
The social experience is not limited to the Discover feed, either. To log into the app, one needs a Meta account, which can be either your Instagram or Facebook account. When a user signs in, their account information, such as profile, content they’ve engaged with, or conversations with Meta AI, can be accessed by the app.
Using this, the chatbot can generate a personalised experience for users. This capability is currently available in the US and Canada, according to Meta.
Apart from drawing on the information from other social media accounts, Meta AI now also has memory. It can remember contextual information gathered from conversations with the user to tailor its responses.
Meta also offers a hands-free experience with the AI app. The chatbot can now verbally converse with the user in a natural and conversational tone. The company said it tweaked the Llama 4 model to add this capability. With this, users can also ask the AI to generate images or edit them via voice conversations.
The voice mode on Meta AI
Photo Credit: Meta
The company is also experimenting with a full-duplex speech technology. This setting instructs the AI to directly generate voice instead of converting written responses into speech (text-to-speech model). Meta says this experience is more natural and feels human-like. However, this mode currently does not have access to the web or real-time information. The voice mode is currently available only in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the US.
Finally, the Meta AI app is also merging with the Meta View companion app for Ray-Ban Meta glasses. This means users will need to connect their smart glasses with the app to access certain features such as checking their gallery, editing images, or checking conversation history.
Meta AI’s companion feature
Photo Credit: Meta
In select countries, users will also be able to switch from the AI app to the glasses without losing the context of the conversation. However, currently, conversations can only be started on the Ray-Ban Meta glasses, but they can be continued in either the Meta AI app or the website. Notably, the Meta AI app is free to download and use, and there are no paid subscriptions for the service at the moment.
