According to a source familiar with the situation who spoke to Reuters on Thursday, Meta Platforms (META.O) intends to launch a paid subscription service for its AI-enabled chatbot Meta AI.
This service will be comparable to those offered by OpenAI and Microsoft (MSFT.O) and would allow users to access advanced versions of their respective chatbots.
According to the source, the test will start around the second quarter of this year; however, they do not anticipate the subscription service generating significant money until the beginning of next year at the earliest.
Meta Artificial Intelligence is a virtual assistant introduced in September 2023. It can perform reasoning tasks by utilizing massive language models. When Reuters attempted to get a comment from Meta, the company declined.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, is making this move to strengthen the company’s position in the contest to dominate artificial intelligence relative to competitors such as OpenAI, which is supported by Microsoft and Google.
Zuckerberg’s January statement indicated that the business intends to invest up to $65 billion this year to enhance its artificial intelligence infrastructure.
As reported by Reuters earlier this month, Meta is also developing a new section inside its Reality Labs subsidiary to produce artificial intelligence-powered humanoid robots capable of assisting with physical chores.
Meta AI-Powered Humanoid Robots: A New Frontier in Physical Assistance
According to a report published by CNBC earlier on Thursday, citing individuals familiar with the topic, the social media giant intends to launch a standalone Meta AI app during the second quarter, joining Facebook and Instagram in this endeavour.
Following ChatGPT’s great success, major technology companies have been investing tens of billions of dollars in the development of artificial intelligence infrastructure.
A January statement by Microsoft indicated that the company intended to invest approximately $80 billion in the fiscal year 2025 in developing data centres. On the other hand, Amazon.com (AMZN.O) stated that its spending in 2025 would be more than the predicted $75 billion in 2024.
