Meta is making its AI chatbot more like an assistant

Meta is upgrading its AI chatbot with new productivity features in a bid to compete with rivals like Gemini, ChatGPT, and Claude. The update will allow Meta AI to tap into your calendar to help you plan events and generate daily briefings, as well as perform in-depth research that you can steer as it progresses.

It marks a reversal from the company’s previous strategy, as Meta CPO Chris Cox told employees last year that the goal is to “focus on entertainment” and “connection with friends,” rather than “focusing obsessively on productivity” like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, as reported by Alex Heath.

Now, Meta says its AI chatbot can generate daily summaries of your day based on your calendar, or browse Facebook Marketplace for used furniture that suits your kitchen renovation budget. It can also search for restaurants for an event you’re planning and check your calendar to pick a day that fits into your schedule. Additionally, Meta says “you only have to set up tasks with Meta AI once, then you can leave Meta AI to handle them,” allowing it to give you calendar briefings without re-prompting, generate meal plans on a weekly basis, or provide updates on product restocks.

The company says its AI assistant is also better at summarizing information from across the web and putting it into a report, presentation, or plan. You can now adjust Meta AI’s direction in the middle of its response as well, similar to what you can do with ChatGPT.

Meta’s updated AI assistant is rolling out today in “select markets” in the Meta AI app and on the web. It will become available to users in more countries and on other platforms, such as WhatsApp, “in the coming weeks.”