Meta is bringing its AI chatbot, Meta AI, to Europe this week, almost a year after it paused the launch in the region. The rollout will include WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger across 41 European countries and 21 overseas territories, but with some limitations. The initial offering will be a text-based chat feature only.
Meta AI initially launched in the US in 2023. The company’s plans to bring the assistant to Europe were put on hold after Ireland’s privacy watchdog raised concerns. The watchdog requested that Meta delay training on content posted by Facebook and Instagram users. The company also paused the launch of its multimodal Llama AI model in the European Union due to regulatory concerns.
For now, Meta AI’s functionality in Europe will be limited to text-based interactions. Users will be able to use it as a chatbot, brainstorming ideas, planning trips, or answering questions by accessing information from the web. Users will also be able to use Meta AI to surface certain content on their Instagram feed. However, features like image generation and editing, or asking questions about a photo, will not be available to users in the region.
“This launch follows almost a year of intensive engagement with various European regulators and for now, we are only offering a text-only model in the region which wasn’t trained on first-party data from users in the EU,” said Meta spokesperson Ellie Heatrick, speaking to The Verge. “We will continue to work collaboratively with regulators so that people in Europe have access to and are properly served by Meta’s AI innovations that are already available to the rest of the world.”
Last November, Meta began introducing some of its AI features to its Ray-Ban smart glasses in the EU. However, the glasses currently lack the multimodal features that allow users to ask Meta AI about what they are seeing. Meta suggests they intend to bring more features to the European version of Meta AI, stating that the company will work to “find parity with the US and expand our offering over time.”
