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Meta AI Surpasses 500 Million Users (engadget.com)

(Thursday October 31, 2024 @12:40PM (BeauHD) from the you'll-have-to-take-his-word-for-it dept.)


An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget:

> Last month at Meta Connect, Mark Zuckerberg said that Meta AI was "on track" to become the most-used generative AI assistant in the world. The company has now passed a significant milestone toward that goal, with Meta AI [1]passing the 500 million user mark , Zuckerberg revealed during the company's latest earnings call. The half billion user mark comes just barely a year after the social network first launched its AI assistant last fall. Zuckerberg said the company still expects to become the "most-used" assistant by the end of 2024, though he's never specified how the company is measuring that metric.

Zuck said that AI-driven improvements in feed and video recommendations have led to an 8% increase in time spent on Facebook and 5% increase on Instagram this year. Advertisers have also leveraged the company's AI tools to generate over 15 million ads in just the past month.

Separately, Meta's Threads app is gaining over a million new sign-ups daily, with nearly 275 million total monthly users.



[1] https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-ai-has-more-than-500-million-users-220353427.html



"Meta AI isn't available yet in your country" (Score:2)

by luvirini ( 753157 )

So so idea what it is and is it any good. Might be fair as their Llama models are not bad.

The math was off, huh? (Score:2)

by i kan reed ( 749298 )

Seems like there's 694.4444444444 suckers born every minute.

Define a "user" (Score:2)

by DrXym ( 126579 )

I have a relative who lives in South Africa who had this enabled in Whatsapp without his consent nor any easy way to remove it. His phone has accessibility features enabled so the text size to 1.5x normal so this line of AI garbage was easily eating 20% of the vertical space in the app. Was he a user? How many more have this dog shit in their devices without their need, consent nor easy way to remove it?

Re: (Score:2)

by i kan reed ( 749298 )

You can't define a user as a person who uses things! That would deflate half the tech bubble!

Half a billion grannies (Score:2)

by FudRucker ( 866063 )

Asking for cake and cookie recipes,

Easy to goose the numbers (Score:3)

by Big Hairy Gorilla ( 9839972 )

When 499 Million of those people were force fed the AI. I doubt they even knew.

Next month I'm sure they will report that 1 Billion people now use the Llama.

It's not an "adoption rate"... it's closer to an incarceration rate.

Wecome to the future of some B grade Sci Fi.

Re: Easy to goose the numbers (Score:2)

by FudRucker ( 866063 )

Thats sounds right considering meta/facebookâ(TM)s method of operations they just shoehorn all the search inquiries into their AI, plus all the scripts the bots run into AI too

increase in time spent (Score:1)

by Anonymous Coward

> an 8% increase in time spent on Facebook and 5% increase on Instagram this year

I'd bet one could do a study that showed that these same people are also now less happy/stable.

Easy when you own whatsapp (Score:1)

by aristofeles ( 763926 )

Just in brazil in the past week they got about 200.000.000 users of meta ai. And for what I can see, about 200.000.000 of them hate this service.

But hey, congrats!

Yeah ok (Score:2)

by ziggee ( 102327 )

That 8% increase in time is the time spent trying to make that F@cker go away and stop annoying me and reporting all the ads as spam. Which they probably report to their ad buyers as user engagement in their analytics.

MetaAI in Whatsapp (Score:3)

by Volanin ( 935080 )

No wonder about those numbers. Since last week, @MetaAI was added to WhatsApp, and it was "automatically added" to all your groups. Here in Brazil, people use groups for EVERYTHING, from family, to business, to common interests. Right now I am in 49 groups, and I am FAR from a heavy WhatsApp user. Just there, it amounts to an instant 200M user increase.

And people are calling @MetaAI all the time to create realtime memes or to banter playfully with others in the groups. The results are mostly awful, but are amusing; and in the many groups I participate, a lot of people using it due to the novelty and easy of integration. I am a paid user of ChatGPT (which I use everyday), and @MetaAI is still really, really lacking when compared to it. Yet, it's the first time many people are having contact with AI on a day-to-day basis.

With inflated numbers or not, Meta has really put a dent in the AI market with this move. And, even with an awful AI, that's where the money is flowing currently.

Sigh, Whatsapp (Score:1)

by blahbooboo2 ( 602610 )

Its pathetic that WhatsApp took over for so many communications around the world (outside of the USA). There are so many better communication options yet this privacy violating app is the choice.

How AI is Increasing Human Productivity (Score:2)

by theodp ( 442580 )

"Zuck said that AI-driven improvements in feed and video recommendations have led to an 8% increase in time spent on Facebook and 5% increase on Instagram this year."

Meta[stasize] is growing (Score:2)

by Sebby ( 238625 )

Yup, the internet's cancer is growing and taking over, killing everything in its path.

Re: (Score:3)

by SoftwareArtist ( 1472499 )

> Advertisers have also leveraged the company's AI tools to generate over 15 million ads in just the past month.

That's something to be ashamed of, not boast about.

Maybe they are counting every facebook page (Score:2)

by TheStatsMan ( 1763322 )

that posts trash AI generated content.

"We have the most computer generated posts!" (Score:2)

by dmay34 ( 6770232 )

Weird flex for a social network.

On the psychology of the creators of social media (Score:2)

by Mirnotoriety ( 10462951 )

[1]Jonathan Haidt [conversati...htyler.com] said something like social media reflect the psychology of the people who built the platforms, semi-autistic, analytical types, who are more about data and efficiency, and they don’t think as much about the human consequences.

This was in a Youtube video of a talk Haidt had made. Curiously enough a transcript of the talk was posted to social media. Subsequently the transcript was taken down and the account suspended. As were all previous posts made from that account.

[1] https://conversationswithtyler.com/episodes/jonathan-haidt-anxious-generation/

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