Shenzhen AI Headhunters Report: Meta AI Hits 400 Million Active Users in Less Than a Year, Zuckerberg Plans $40 Billion Investment to Surpass ChatGPT

Shenzhen AI headhunters have learned that Meta AI has attracted 400 million monthly active users in less than a year, and Mark Zuckerberg plans to invest $40 billion to surpass ChatGPT. However, aggressive promotion methods have led to user dissatisfaction, and Meta must continuously optimize the user experience to address these challenges.

According to a report from Information today, two current Meta employees revealed that since Meta AI’s launch, the monthly active user count has reached 400 million, with daily active users numbering 40 million.

Meta AI has become one of the world’s leading artificial intelligence assistants, allowing users to complete various tasks via platforms like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.

According to Meta’s official website, Llama 3.1-405B has improved its reasoning capabilities, enabling Meta AI to better understand and respond to complex user queries, especially in areas like mathematics and programming.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg hopes that by the end of this year, Meta AI will surpass OpenAI’s ChatGPT and become the most popular AI assistant globally.

To achieve this goal, Meta plans to invest up to $40 billion in 2024 to build data centers and AI infrastructure to support the development of its large language model, Llama.

Shenzhen AI headhunters note that, unlike Meta AI, ChatGPT generates revenue through subscriptions, earning approximately $2 billion annually from these subscriptions.

Meta AI has become a significant competitor to ChatGPT.

1. Integrated into Multiple Meta Applications and Launched an Independent Website

User data from early August shows that about 10% of monthly active users engage with Meta AI daily to ask questions, generate images, and complete other tasks. However, this figure is significantly lower compared to usage rates of other Meta applications.

In a report from February, Meta mentioned that 80% of its monthly active users engage with at least one Meta application daily.

Connor Hayes, Vice President of Meta’s Generative AI products, stated, “Considering all factors, we are very satisfied with our current progress. However, our long-term goals for Meta AI are much higher than where we are now, so this is not the time to rest.”

He also noted that usage patterns for Meta AI vary, partly due to different user understandings of how to use the service. Some users encounter it while browsing Facebook, while others choose to interact with it via WhatsApp.

Hayes believes that users are still learning how to use Meta AI effectively.

According to Shenzhen AI headhunters, since its launch in September 2023, Meta AI has quickly integrated into Meta’s ecosystem, providing a richer interactive experience through continuous product updates and feature enhancements.

Initially, users could only interact with Meta AI through direct messages on Instagram, WhatsApp, or Messenger. As Meta improved and promoted its AI assistant, it introduced Meta AI into search boxes and information feeds in other Meta apps in April and launched an independent website.

That month, Meta also released an assistant capable of recognizing and understanding images, which was widely applied to Ray-Ban smart glasses.

Currently, Meta AI is available in 22 countries and offers an English version for smart glasses in the US and Canada.

2. 400 Million Monthly Active Users, but Aggressive Promotion Has Sparked Complaints

Meta is actively promoting this AI assistant to reach its over 3 billion daily active users across its products.

Some users have voiced concerns about Meta’s aggressive promotion tactics, posting complaints on platforms like Facebook, Reddit, and X about the intrusive nature of the AI assistant’s promotion, such as adding a search button to the keyboard.

Users have harshly criticized the design changes involving Meta AI in the search bar and information feed, complaining that they are often redirected to the Meta AI page while searching for other content.

In response, Hayes stated that Meta made design adjustments to the search bar earlier this year to reduce accidental queries. Users pressing the search button on the keyboard will no longer activate the assistant.

It is still unclear how many people have unintentionally used Meta AI, but Meta employees need to hold regular discussions to understand user experiences.

One employee mentioned that when Instagram surveyed users about these changes, most disliked the original design and felt it impacted their experience in finding accounts and content.

An insider cited internal data indicating that “nearly half of users who accidentally opened the assistant quickly exited the chat, suggesting they only intended to search and did not want to use the AI assistant.”

Hayes responded, “Our goal has never been to inconvenience users. Our responsibility is to gather as much feedback as possible, resolve issues, improve the product, and then promote it.”

3. Challenges in Surpassing ChatGPT

Compared to other AI assistants, Meta’s open-source strategy for Llama 3 has garnered widespread recognition in the developer community.

Meta stated, “With the latest breakthroughs in Meta Llama 3, we believe Meta AI is now the smartest AI assistant users can access for free.”

Despite Meta’s 400 million monthly active users, the challenge of surpassing ChatGPT remains significant.

According to Shenzhen AI headhunters, OpenAI reported on Thursday that ChatGPT’s weekly active users have surpassed 200 million, doubling from a year ago.