Meta AI apps push expands as Zuckerberg says more products are coming

The Meta AI apps push is moving from theory to product testing. On Meta’s second-quarter earnings call this week, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors that artificial intelligence is helping teams build faster, a signal that the company plans to keep trying new consumer apps alongside Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads.

For retail investors, the point is not just that Meta is launching more apps. It is that management is tying AI spending to product speed, ad relevance and recommendation systems, three areas that affect how Meta keeps users engaged and how it sells ads to businesses.

How is Meta using AI to build new apps?

Zuckerberg said Meta has recently shipped Instagram Instants, Forum, Seller and other experiments, and he expects it to get easier for the company to release more apps. Forum is a standalone app tied to Facebook Groups, while Seller is built for Marketplace sellers. Meta has also launched or tested a gaming app, an Instagram photos app and an AI bedtime-story experiment, according to TechCrunch.

Large language models, or LLMs, are AI systems trained to understand and generate text, images or other content patterns. Meta executives said those systems can help product teams move faster and can also improve what users see in feeds by better understanding content.

“I’m...excited about how AI is helping our teams speed up product development,” Zuckerberg told investors, according to TechCrunch. He added that Meta plans to build more ideas and use its recommendation systems to help them grow.

Zuckerberg also told investors that AI is improving Meta’s core business by making its apps more relevant and producing better results for businesses. He said the company is starting to release more novel products and will have “a lot more” soon.

Meta has tried standalone apps before

Meta’s appetite for separate social apps has a long history, with mixed results. When the company was still called Facebook, it operated Creative Labs, an internal group that produced apps including Slingshot, Rooms, Paper, Moments and Riff. That effort ended in 2015, and the apps were later shut down after failing to build lasting audiences.

The company later tried a similar approach through its NPE Team, an internal research and development group. That team tested products such as Bump, Aux, Move, Spark, CatchUp, E.gg, Venue, Hotline, Super, Tuned and BARS. Those apps also did not become breakout hits and were shut down, according to TechCrunch.

The difference Meta is pointing to now is AI. The company says LLMs can help with both building products and scaling them through recommendations, which are the systems that decide what posts, videos or accounts users are likely to see next.

Why Threads is part of the AI story

Threads gives Meta one recent example of a standalone app that has gained meaningful scale. TechCrunch reported in June that Threads had reached 500 million monthly active users. Zuckerberg has said Threads could eventually become Meta’s next billion-user app.

Meta used its existing platforms, including Instagram and Facebook, to introduce Threads to users. The company also says AI-powered recommendations are helping growth. CFO Susan Li told investors that LLMs are improving ranking and recommendations by helping systems understand content and create better training data.

Li said LLM-powered agents are assisting engineering teams by judging content quality, finding trends and testing ranking changes. She also said Meta reached a milestone earlier this year: every Instagram Reel and Feed post is now processed through an LLM and analyzed for topic and tone to improve recommendations.

Meta is also working on recommendation systems built around LLMs from the start, according to Li. Investors on the call did not press executives for more detail on the coming apps, focusing instead on AI spending and Meta’s enterprise plans. Zuckerberg said the new consumer products are “releasing soon.”

This story draws on original reporting from TechCrunch.