Facebook is finally launching its virtual assistant for Messenger instant messaging after announcing it in 2015. This artificial intelligence-based voice assistant, named M, is currently only available for Messenger users on Android and iOS in the United States. It will be available in other countries soon, but we don’t know an exact date yet.
Facebook M Messenger, an artificial intelligence-based virtual assistant
That’s why M is an artificial intelligence virtual assistant that suggests useful actions in your messaging system. These suggestions occur when the AI recognizes a context or predicts an intention in a conversation and can be numerous and varied.
The M logo will appear and may offer to choose a sticker to send as “Thank you” or “Goodbye”. The assistant can even recognize when users are talking about money and offer to request or send money. They may also suggest that you share your location, create and schedule events, start a survey in a group call, or order rides with Uber or Lyft.
Of course these are suggestions and you can accept, reject or ignore the offer and it is even possible to easily disable the assistant by going to the app settings so you don’t bother any more. Subsequently, other features and recommendations will improve artificial intelligence with updates.
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As such, M is a voice assistant that competes with Google Assistant, Siri and Cortana. It will make Messenger easier to use and will introduce the app’s 1 billion monthly users to many features they don’t know yet.