Meta Platforms Inc. today debuted a collection of generative artificial intelligence features that will become available in Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp.

Most of the features are rolling out for the company’s Meta AI chatbot. Introduced in September, the chatbot can retrieve information from the web using Bing and generate images.

Today’s update will enable Meta AI to generate more detailed responses when a user submits a question from a mobile device. Additionally, Meta’s engineers have expanded the range of requests the chatbot can process and enhanced its ability to summarize Bing search results.

While at it, the company is upgrading the chatbot’s multimodal processing capabilities. Consumers can now use Meta AI to search for clips hosted in Meta’s Facebook Reels service. The chatbot’s built-in Imagine image generation tool, in turn, has received a feature that makes it possible to upload an existing photo and edit it with natural language commands.

Meta is making Imagine available as a standalone service via a dedicated webpage. The new standalone version is available at no charge and can generate images in a few seconds. Images created with the tool will include a watermark that is invisible to humans but can be detected with a suitably configured neural network.

Under the hood, the standalone version of Imagine is powered by an AI model called Emu that Meta researchers detailed in September. Emu was trained using 1.1 billion images and is based on a so-called latent diffusion architecture. What sets latent diffusion models apart from standard AI image generators is that the training dataset with which they are built is enhanced using a neural network called an autoencoder.

Meta AI is not the only chatbot the social media giant offers to consumers. Earlier this year, the company introduced more than two dozen other chatbots that each generate text in a different style. Several of those services are also receiving upgrades as part of today’s update.

According to Meta, six of the chatbots will be equipped with a “long-term memory” capability. The enhancement will enable them to carry over information from one chat session to the next. In parallel, six other chatbots are receiving an integration with Bing that will allow them to draw on information from the web when answering user questions. 

Meta detailed today that it plans to roll out additional generative AI features across its platform in the coming year. The upcoming capabilities will focus on use cases such as text generation and image editing. Meta is also testing a generative AI feature that can help consumers research products listed on its Facebook Marketplace classified ads service and find related merchandise. 

Image: Meta