Meta AI

Meta AI is the assistant built into WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and Facebook, and also available on its own at meta.ai, in a mobile app and in a Mac desktop app (in beta). There's no separate sign-up beyond your existing Meta account. Meta says it's powered by Muse Spark, a model from Meta Superintelligence Labs.

What sets it apart is context from Meta's own platforms. Meta AI can cite public posts from Instagram, Facebook and Threads in its answers, and its shopping and local-recommendation features draw on Marketplace listings and on what people nearby are posting about.

What it can do

• Chat in two speeds: Instant for quick answers, Thinking for harder questions that need reasoning.
• Deep research: it plans the research, searches several sources and drafts a structured report with citations.
• Images: create images in conversation, or edit a photo by asking or sketching on it (change a background, remove objects, restyle).
• Tasks: build presentations, write docs or training plans, and run scheduled tasks. Connect your email and calendar and it can send a personalised daily briefing.
• Voice and vision: a conversational voice mode in 13 languages, plus live AI that answers questions about what your camera sees, including on Meta's AI glasses.
• Business tools: link an Instagram professional account, Meta Ads Manager and Google Workspace to analyse content and ad performance.

Incognito Chats are processed in a secure environment that Meta says no one, including Meta, can access.

Price

Meta AI is free for everyday use. Meta's FAQ adds that it has started testing usage limits on some compute-heavy features, and people who hit a daily or monthly limit can buy a subscription for more usage. Meta doesn't publish those subscription prices on its public pages, so we can't list them here. Checked October 2026 on meta.ai and ai.meta.com.

Who it's for

Anyone who already spends their day in WhatsApp or Instagram and wants quick help without opening another app. Small businesses that advertise on Meta get the most specific value from the Ads Manager link.

Pros: free, already inside apps billions of people use, strong at local and shopping questions.
Cons: answers lean on social posts, which are not always reliable; connecting email, calendar and business accounts means sharing more data with Meta; paid limits aren't clearly published.

Alternatives

ChatGPT and Google Gemini are the closest everyday assistants, while Grok takes a similar approach with live posts from X.