Meta, the largest social media company, has announced plans to lead the world in artificial intelligence. Meta has revealed plans to launch several AI products in Australia this year. The announcement came during the company’s quarterly earnings call on Feb. 2, at which chief executive Mark Zuckerberg discussed plans to deliver a world-class AI assistant and take on competitors such as Microsoft and Google.
Moving into AI will be a major goal for the company, according to Mr. Zuckerberg. He stated that they aim to develop is a full general intelligence model that could reason, plan, code, remember, and deliver advanced services. Meta has plans to train its AI model using publicly shared images and videos on Facebook and Instagram.
Australia and New Zealand managing director Will Easton said the company’s AI creations would also be delivered to local users, starting in 2024. He emphasized that the company is focused on building the most advanced AI products and services. Meta’s ambitious AI goals will put it into direct competition with Microsoft’s Copilot, Google’s Bard, and OpenAI’s ChatGPT, all of which are trained using data from search engines.
Despite the loss, Meta saw revenue jump by 25 percent to US$40.1 billion during the quarter, with more than 3.1 billion people using its apps daily. However, Meta’s AI ambitions will come at a substantial cost, as the company expects expenses for infrastructure and bigger losses for its augmented and virtual reality services to increase. Meta revealed it expected higher expenses, with its capital expenditure forecasted to grow by as much as US$9 billion in 2024—up by US$2 billion on previous forecasts.
The Reality Labs division, which makes augmented and virtual reality products including Oculus VR, lost US$4.65 billion during the last three months of 2023 and is expected to lose more due to ongoing investments. If successful, Meta’s advanced AI assistant could drastically improve user experiences.