Check out Meta’s not-so-cunning plan to take on ChatGPT

Meta wants a piece of the pie — a big piece — when it comes to generative AI. As part of its long-term strategy to embed itself in every part of our lives, the Mark Zuckerberg-led company is planning to launch its Meta AI chatbot as a standalone app, CNBC reported on Thursday, citing unnamed sources claiming to have knowledge of the matter.

Meta is aiming to launch the AI chatbot app between April and June this year, the sources said. The company may also offer a subscription model with more advanced features.

A standalone Meta AI app would compete with the slew of other AI chatbots already out there, including popular ones like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, X’s Grok, Perplexity, and DeepSeek, a Chinese effort that burst onto the scene just last month.

Meta unveiled Meta AI in September 2023 before incorporating it into its stable of apps — among them Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — starting last April. Like other generative AI apps, Meta AI can converse in a natural, human-like way, and also create images in response to prompts input by users.

Speaking in January, Zuckerberg said that 2025 would be “the year when a highly intelligent and personalized AI assistant reaches more than one billion people, and I expect Meta AI to be that leading AI assistant.”

By offering Meta AI as a standalone app rather than only as a part of its social media apps, Meta believes it will lead to deeper, more rewarding interaction with the AI, sources told CNBC.

Certainly, if a big hitter like Meta does release Meta AI as a standalone app, it will increase competition and potentially further fragment the AI chatbot sector.

Additionally, Meta’s huge data resources could give its AI an edge in personalization, but at the same time its arrival may raise more privacy concerns compared to other AI chatbots.

Responding to news that Meta may be about to release a standalone app for its AI chatbot, OpenAI chief Sam Altman quipped in a post on X: “OK, fine, maybe we’ll do a social app,” adding, “lol if Facebook tries to come at us and we just uno reverse them it would be so funny.”