Meta Platforms Inc. today announced a new standalone Meta AI app that houses an artificial intelligence assistant powered by the company’s Llama 4 large language model to provide a more personalized experience for users.

The company said the new app is built to be more social and is designed with voice features. It has an improved underlying voice model that has a more conversational tone.

There is also a full-duplex speech demo, which means that the AI will listen even as it’s speaking and the user can interrupt the AI. This will make the conversation more like a phone call, instead of asking a question, waiting for it to finish and then asking another.

“This technology will deliver a more natural voice experience trained on conversational dialogue, so the AI is generating voice directly instead of reading written responses,” Meta said.

Meta noted that the full-duplex demo voice capability doesn’t have web or real-time information. Still, the company wanted to offer a glimpse of the future capabilities by letting users experiment with this powerful voice demo. It can be toggled on or off within the app.

The voice features will continue to operate even while users are off multitasking in other apps, meaning that they can surf around their mobile device and the app will turn into a visible icon revealing that the microphone is in use.

Voice conversations, including the demo for full-duplex, are available in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Personalizing AI to the user

Meta said users are getting to know AI better than ever and it’s important that their personal assistant is exactly that: personal.

Users will be able to ask the AI assistant to remember certain things about them — for example, they love to travel and learn new languages, enjoy building LEGO projects or are an avid book reader. It can also pick up important details from the user’s social media on Meta that the user has chosen to share with it, such as the profile, content the user has engaged with and more.

Personalized responses are available today for users in the U.S. and Canada. The AI app can connect to Facebook and Instagram accounts and draw from both to provide an even more personalized experience.

Just like every other part of Meta’s social media ecosystem, Meta AI includes a Discover feed where users can share and explore how others are using the AI. “You can see the best prompts people are sharing, or remix them to make them your own,” the company said.

Meta AI app across devices

As wearables are becoming a new way for people to interface with AI, Meta is merging the new Meta AI app with the Meta View companion app for its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.

Meta announced its most recent generation of Ray-Ban smart glasses in partnership with EssilorLuxottica in 2023. They have audio and camera livestreaming capabilities that allow them to connect to AI via voice. So, the AI can see and hear what the wearer is doing and saying.

Meta said in some countries, users will be able to switch from interacting with Meta AI on the glasses to the app. “You’ll be able to start a conversation on your glasses, then access it in your history tab from the app or web to pick up where you left off,” the company added.

However, users can’t start a chat on the app or web and pick it up on the glasses.

Meta also said the AI app on the web is receiving the voice upgrade and the Discover feed. The web interface will work better on larger screens, allowing users with desktops and laptops to enjoy a better experience. The company is also experimenting with a rich text editor in select countries, which will permit users to generate documents with both text and images and then export them as PDFs.

Image: Meta