Tech companies often measure their success by the number of active users or subscribers they have.
For example, Meta, with its billions of users across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, exemplifies extensive market reach. This vast user base not only reflects the company’s brand reception but also showcases its innovation.
Moreover, such numbers highlight Meta’s role as a cultural influencer, showcasing how it managed to shape the way people interact, work, and communicate worldwide.
On one side Meta is already a strong player in the social media sphere.
This time, as the world is already deep into the AI age, the public is approaching the inflexion point where more users are using AI than aren't, Meta doesn't want to be left behind.
Following OpenAI that started it following the introduction of ChatGPT, Meta, which still sits high above OpenAI in terms of influence and resources, wants to become the most dominant of all.
Meta's AI product, called the 'Meta AI', is already hitting huge user numbers.
But knowing that the race is on, and an increasing number of players are in the field trying the best to be the best, Meta is not showing any signs of slowing down.
Meta AI has been integrated across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, and is also available as a standalone website. It's also available on Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, with plans for integration into Meta Quest mixed-reality headsets.
Initially launched in September 2023, Meta AI was expanded to over 22 countries, including the United States, Australia, and India, where it was rolled out in June.
In addition to Meta AI, Zuckerberg highlighted the growing adoption of the company’s open-source LLaMA models, which have been downloaded nearly 350 million times, with 20 million downloads in the last month alone. The usage of Llama models across major cloud providers has more than doubled from May to July 2024.
In all, according to a report, Meta has pushed its AI assistant to its 3 billion users since its debut, and it hit 400 million monthly users earlier in August 2024.
The report quoted two Meta employees, who reportedly said the AI had 40 million active users daily.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg who announced the news, said that approximately 185 million of that many users engage with the chatbot on a weekly basis, highlighting its rapid growth amid increasing competition from rivals such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, and Microsoft's Copilot.
While the number is relatively small number of those 3 billion, but still a huge number away from that in the wider AI space.
Zuckerberg is certain that Meta AI can be the most-used AI tool by the end of 2024.
In a post on Threads, Zuckerberg noted the chatbot's impressive growth, stating, “...growing quickly, and we haven't even rolled out in the UK, Brazil, or EU yet.” While specific usage details were not disclosed, Meta CFO Susan Li previously indicated that India is the largest market for Meta AI.
Despite Zuckerberg’s enthusiasm, Meta's 400 million Meta AI users paint a less attractive picture, especially considering the tool is completely free.
Reasons behind the performance may include a lack of knowledge or hesitation about AI, especially in less developed countries with massive user bases.
However, 400 million from 3 billion is a small number.
Some suggest that the reason behind this, is the chatbot’s relatively low retention, where users try it but do not find enough value to return.
Employees even suggested that the assistant is being pushed too hard on users, leading to customers trying it and not returning.
Much of the lack of retention was tied to the feature's prominence in the search bar, with users attempting to perform one task, directing them to MetaAI instead.
"The playbook here is, you put the thing out there, you get feedback from the early adopters, you improve the quality of it and then you promote it," explained Connor Hayes, Meta’s VP for GenAI. "I think we’re just before that stage at this point."