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Meta continues its plans to develop its artificial intelligence offering for businesses, as the social media platform internally deploys a new AI tool aimed at increasing productivity.
The AI software, called Metamate after the group’s internal employee name, is built on the tech giant’s large language model, Llama, and is used to code, conduct research and draft internal communications and external.
Prashant Ratanchandani, Meta’s vice president of engineering who is leading Metamate’s development, said there were no plans to release the software for external use, but that the project offered valuable insights into applications of Metamate. Enterprise AI. He told the FT that Meta wanted to create “the best business assistant in the world”.
The move comes as tech groups including OpenAI and Google race to bring AI-based assistants to consumers and businesses as they seek to generate revenue from the rapidly developing technology.
The market for so-called AI agents, capable of reasoning and performing complex tasks for people, is expected to grow from $5.1 billion to $47 billion by 2030, according to data from the market research firm MarketsandMarkets.
This comes as Meta explores ways to make money from AI through enterprise products. Last month, she recruited Clara Shih, former general manager of AI at Salesforce, to lead a new “Business AI” group. Shih said his vision was to “make cutting-edge AI accessible to every business” in his new role.
Analysts welcomed the move as an opportunity for the company to monetize Llama, for example, by creating off-the-shelf applications leveraging open source models.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made it clear that he wants to become a dominant player in AI, quickly integrating AI capabilities into Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook, and offering AI agents to users, creators and businesses using the platforms.
However, Metamate is not yet as advanced as similar products offered by competitors Microsoft and Google, which their employees use internally and are also sold to businesses.
Unlike most consumer chatbots, Metamate is primarily a text-based interface and does not currently support videos or images.
It also lacks the more autonomous, agent-like features of its competitors, such as joining and summarizing meetings, scheduling items in calendars, or taking actions on the user’s behalf.
Meta employees, including executives, said they regularly used the tool for a variety of tasks, including coding, finding internal information on the company intranet, and preparing for calls and follow-ups customers. The company also uses other models internally, including ChatGPT from OpenAI.
Ratanchandani said Meta was considering ways to improve the product, including making it more like an AI assistant. He said it was too early to measure its impact on productivity.
Across the market, adoption of this technology is limited. A recent report from Goldman Sachs suggests that widespread adoption or productivity gains from AI tools would not be likely until at least 2027.
“It’s a very common way to develop something in-house and ‘dog food’ (employees have to test it),” said Oren Etzioni, a computer science professor at the University of Washington.
However, he added: “(Just because) it works very well within Meta, that doesn’t mean it’s easy for Meta – which is a very advertising-driven social network – to become an advertising provider. business. They wouldn’t be at the top of my list for who will come out on top in this area.