Meta makes its chatbot available to all users in India

After a few months of testing during the general elections, Meta is making its AI-powered chatbot powered by Llama-3 available to all users in India. However, Meta AI currently only supports English and does not support any other local languages.

The company started testing Meta AI in India across WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and Facebook in April by rolling it out to select users. Days later, the company officially rolled out the robot in more than a dozen countries, but not in India, likely due to the general elections being held in the country at the time.

Apart from making the chatbot available to all users through the search bar in its apps, Meta is also making the tool available through meta.ai website.

Meta AI’s functionality is similar to other chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude. You can ask it to suggest recipes, plan exercises, help you write emails, or summarize a batch of texts.

On Instagram, a chatbot can suggest reels to watch based on your search query. Additionally, in your Facebook feed, you’ll see a Meta AI prompt, so you can ask questions related to the post. For example, if you see a photo of the Northern Lights, you can ask Meta AI for suggestions about the best places and the best times to see the northern lights.

Meta AI can also generate images based on your prompts. TechCrunch in May found that Meta AI had a strong tendency to add turbans when creating images of Indian men. There were also other biases such as constantly creating an old-style Indian home with vibrant colors, wooden pillars and coordinating ceilings.

While Meta said that, at the time, it was constantly updating its models, it is not clear whether the company made any changes in these areas.

“This is new technology, and it may not always result in the response we intend, which is the same for all generative AI systems. Since our launch, we’ve continually released updates and improvements to our models, and we’re continuing to work on improving them,” a TechCrunch spokesperson said at the time.

Meta is bringing its chatbot to India’s massive user base of 500 million WhatsApp users along with hundreds of millions of users of its other apps. On WhatsApp, while you can chat with Meta AI individually, you can also get help from a chatbot within a group chat with things like planning a trip or deciding on a movie to watch.

Meta AI does not have the context of a group’s conversation beyond the text it uses when referring to or responding to the chatbot, the company said. The company has adjusted its model based on your conversations with it.

Meta said it is not possible to turn off or hide the Meta AI functionality in its app. However, people can choose to participate in the research without calling up the chatbot.

The social media company’s launch comes a week after Google launched the Gemini app for Android users in India with support for nine local languages.