- Meta’s AI ambitions have received a huge boost from 500 million users in India, which Meta CFO Susan Li says has become the largest market for Meta AI usage. Meta AI usage in India has grown significantly, especially on WhatsApp.
- Meta faces cultural challenges while testing Meta AI in India, such as inconsistencies in generated images and jokes, but the company has adjusted the algorithm to ensure parity.
OUR TAKE
Meta’s AI product, Meta AI, has seen significant growth in usage in India with user retention and engagement showing positive trends on WhatsApp particularly. Despite challenges with cultural adaptation, Meta has addressed these issues by tweaking its algorithms and adding language support, and planned to use more computing resources to train future AI models.
-Rae Li, BTW reporter
What happened
Meta has announced significant growth in the usage of its AI product in India, making it the largest market globally. Meta CFO Susan Li says that since the launch of Meta AI in India, billions of queries have been made by users. She highlights that Meta AI is showing particularly positive signs of user retention and engagement on WhatsApp, which coincides with India becoming the largest market for Meta AI usage. Meta AI is initially launched in the US last year and is upgraded to the new Llama 3 model in April before being rolled out in more than 10 countries. While Meta faces cultural challenges while testing Meta AI in India, such as inconsistencies in generated images and jokes, the company has tweaked the algorithm to ensure parity.
Meta announces further extensions to Meta AI, including support for languages other than English, such as French, German, Hindi, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Meta AI is now available in 22 countries, including recent additions such as Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, and Mexico. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg mentions on the conference call that in order to train the next Llama 4 model, 10 times the computing power needed to train Llama 3 is required, and that the computational needs of the model will continue to grow in the future. In addition to AI, Meta also reports positive signs for its social networks, such as the Threads app approaching 200 million users and the growth of Facebook usage among young adults in the US.
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Why it’s important
The significant growth of Meta AI in the Indian market underscores the success of the Company’s strategy to promote AI technology globally. The widespread use of Meta AI in India not only proves the adaptability and attractiveness of Meta’s products across different cultures and markets, but also demonstrates Meta’s technological prowess and innovation in the field of AI.
The positive acceptance of Meta AI in India has provided the company with valuable data and feedback that will help further optimise and improve the AI product. Additionally, the cultural challenges Meta faced in India and subsequent algorithm adjustments demonstrate the company’s focus on cultural sensitivity and diversity when rolling out AI globally, which is critical to building global user trust and satisfaction.
