Meta AI was first introduced in 2023 as their AI assistant that lived within the suite of Meta’s apps. It was built with Meta LLama (their open-source LLM), which then evolved with Meta Llama 3 in April 2024. One year since its release, Meta AI went multi-lingual and expanded to more countries.
The time has arrived for the Middle East region along with support for the Arabic language, as the official news came from Meta’s Regional Director on LinkedIn.
AI-powered social assistant
Unlike ChatGPT and few other AI-power assistant, there’s no additional app to download for it. After all, the best way to access and use it is right within Meta’s products – Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. Though, I imagine they’re still working out how to include Threads into the mix.
According to Fares, Meta AI is already on track to become the world’s most-used AI assistant by the end of the year, with nearly 700 million active monthly users and availability in 42 countries and 13 languages.
Accessing Meta AI is as easy as looking for the blue circle icon easily accessible through its blue circle icon within Meta’s apps and requires no prior registration.
- WhatsApp: access it via the Search bar or you may get an automated message from Meta AI
- Instagram: access it under the Search tab or Direct Messages
- Facebook: access it from Home Feed and then the Search option on the top right
- Messenger: access it via the app and then tapping the Meta AI tab.
If you’re wondering what are the possibilities of using it (and it’s free), these are some of the things you can explore with Meta AI as it’s powered by Meta’s Llama 3.2 LLM:
- Research topics
- Get how-to advice
- Generate images (which will have watermarks and metadata to show they’re AI generated) with the ability to animate them
- Enhance social connections
- Identify objects and landmarks
- Create AI images based on existing photos
Topping it off is the support for multiple languages, with the Middle East getting more attention with Arabic support. This will definitely appeal to many who long to use Arabic, makes it accessible to a larger audience. That joins the existing group of Hindi, French, Spanish, Italian, German, and Portuguese.
Meta AI’s regional aspirations
As for the Middle East rollout, it looks to be a phased launch across the region as current availability includes the following markets: UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, and Iraq (likely due to large volume of user activity to justify them).
The launch marks a significant milestone in the region’s AI landscape. UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have pursued their own Arabic LLM (catch more about it with the below podcast episode). It would be interesting to see if Meta does explore regional partnerships in the future to integrate them into Meta AI – just like how Apple said they were open to adding Google Gemini alongside OpenAI’s ChatGPT for Apple Intelligence.
Marking the launch, Meta is introducing a content series titled “Elevating Every Moment” aimed at guiding users on how to effectively use Meta AI in the Middle East either personally or professionally. Working closely with regional content creators like Amro Maskoun, it will offer practical tips and examples. Meta will also be adding an additional educational series will be on Meta Arabia’s official page.
If you on a desktop/laptop, you can access Meta AI by visiting its dedicated site (additional features are available when using Instagram/Facebook to log in). On mobile devices, you can use it without any additional downloads via WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook (just make sure you’re updated to the latest version of the apps on iOS/Android).
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