Meta Launches Standalone AI App Powered by Llama 4

Meta has officially released its new standalone Meta AI app, an AI assistant designed for voice-first, personalized interactions. Built on Meta’s advanced Llama 4 language model, the app expands Meta AI beyond its original presence on Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp—offering a dedicated space for more natural conversations, creative tools, and access across devices.

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A Voice-First, Personalized Experience

At the core of the new Meta AI app is a conversational assistant that learns from you. The app offers:

• Natural voice interaction, with more personalized and relevant responses. It includes a tap-to-talk microphone, with an optional “Ready to talk” setting that lets users keep voice enabled by default—ideal for multitasking or when you’re on-the-go.

• Context memory, so Meta AI can remember specific details you’ve shared in conversation (like your favorite hobbies or travel goals) and use ongoing interactions to refine its understanding of your preferences.

• Personalized responses, which draw on profile data, activity, and interests from Facebook and Instagram—if your accounts are connected through Meta’s Account Center.

• Conversation syncing, letting you pick up interactions across devices, from smart glasses to desktop

You can tell Meta AI to remember facts like your favorite vacation spots, language-learning goals, or daily routines. It then incorporates this context into future responses to feel more helpful and human.

Discover Feed and AI Content Tools

One of the app’s standout features is the new Discover feed—a curated stream where users can:

• Browse how others are using Meta AI

• Remix popular prompts shared by the community

• Explore creative use cases, from travel ideas to recipe generation

Nothing is shared unless you choose to post it. Meta emphasizes user control—but it’s worth noting that opting out of having your data used to train Meta AI is nearly impossible. Since personalization is at the heart of the experience, some background data use is effectively built in.

Inside the app, users can also generate and edit images, using voice or text. Visual content can be customized with style, lighting, and mood controls—an expansion of the features already available on the web.

Full-Duplex Voice Demo

The app also includes a voice demo powered by full-duplex speech technology, which allows Meta AI to speak and listen at the same time for more natural, real-time interaction. Unlike traditional assistants that read text aloud in turns, this system generates speech directly, trained on conversational patterns for a more fluid, lifelike voice experience.

This early-stage demo can be toggled on or off and is currently available in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Meta notes that users may encounter inconsistencies, and feedback will shape its future development.

Unified Ecosystem: Glasses and Desktop Integration

Meta’s app launch marks a deeper integration of its AI across hardware and platforms. The Meta AI app now replaces the Meta View app as the companion for Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, allowing:

• Voice-initiated conversations on glasses

• Then, access Chat history from the app or web to pick up where you left off

• Once the Meta AI app updates, all your paired devices, settings, and media will automatically transfer to the new Devices tab.

However, bidirectional sync is one-way: conversations can begin on the glasses and continue elsewhere, but not the other way around.

The Meta AI web interface has also been redesigned to align more closely with the new app, bringing a more unified experience across devices. Key updates include:

• Voice interactions and the Discover feed, now available directly on desktop, allowing users to talk to Meta AI and explore prompt inspiration without switching to mobile.

• Enhanced image generation, with a wider range of customization options—including style, lighting, mood, and color adjustments—making it easier to refine visual outputs in creative or professional contexts.

• A rich document editor (currently in testing), which enables users to create detailed, multi-section documents filled with AI-generated text and images, and export them as PDFs. This could be useful for presentations, proposals, lesson plans, and more.

• Document import capability, also in testing, which allows users to upload existing files for Meta AI to summarize, analyze, or extract information from—an early sign of potential enterprise and productivity applications.

Users can download the apps for iOS and Android.

Zuckerberg’s AI Vision

Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg called the launch “the beginning of what’s going to be a long journey,” revealing that nearly a billion people are already using Meta AI across the company’s platforms. The standalone app represents a major move to consolidate AI usage under one umbrella.

With its launch during LlamaCon in California and backed by Meta’s $60 billion investment in U.S. data centers, this rollout signals more than just a new app—it’s a foundational step in Meta’s broader AI strategy.

Growing Competitive Pressure

The launch of Meta’s AI app arrives as major players in the AI space race to define the future of consumer-facing assistants. OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has yet to release a dedicated social app—but CEO Sam Altman has publicly joked about the idea, and recent activity suggests something may be in development.

If OpenAI follows through, the rivalry between Meta and OpenAI could shift from foundational models to the interfaces that bring them to life.

What This Means

Meta’s new AI app brings its most advanced assistant directly into users’ hands, no longer buried inside other products. With voice-first design, real-time personalization, and creative tools that blend work, play, and conversation, this app positions Meta to compete head-on with ChatGPT and other AI players.

By linking across devices and platforms—from smart glasses to desktops—Meta is creating an ecosystem that turns AI into a continuous presence, not just a utility.

Meta’s message is clear: AI isn’t just another feature—it’s the future of how you interact with the digital world.

Editor’s Note: This article was created by Alicia Shapiro, CMO of AiNews.com, with writing, image, and idea-generation support from ChatGPT, an AI assistant. However, the final perspective and editorial choices are solely Alicia Shapiro’s. Special thanks to ChatGPT for assistance with research and editorial support in crafting this article.