Meta, the tech giant behind Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, is making an impact with artificial intelligence (AI), with India playing an important role in its global strategy. In an exclusive interview with CNBC TV18, Nicola Mendelsohn, VP of Global Business Group at Meta, shared her thoughts into the company’s AI initiatives and their impact on the Indian market.
Mendelsohn revealed that Meta has been investing in AI since the early days of Newsfeed in 2006–2007. The company’s AI efforts are focused on three main areas: content relevance, content moderation, and advertising performance. Recently, Meta has been “supercharging” its AI investments, particularly with the launch of its large language model, Llama.
“We’ve now put Meta AI at the very top of people’s Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp,” Mendelsohn stated. She added: “India is actually leading the world in the number of people that are utilizing met AI and we’ve said ourselves and we believe that by the end of this year that we actually going to be the largest AI assistant anywhere on the planet.”
The impact of Meta’s AI initiatives extends beyond social media platforms. Mendelsohn cited an example of an Indian education company, Arier, which has leveraged Meta’s AI technology to send out “over a million personalized responses” to students, demonstrating the potential for AI to revolutionize education in India.
Meta’s commitment to open-source AI development sets it apart in the industry. Mendelsohn explained: “We’re all in on open. We believe that when you are open it leads to greater transparency, and it allows others to develop on with you together and therefore all boats rise at the same time.”
As AI continues to evolve, Meta is also addressing concerns about misinformation and synthetic content, especially in the context of elections. Mendelsohn assured that the company’s policies on misinformation apply equally to AI-generated content.
With India leading the way in the adoption of AI by Meta, it will surely contribute a lot toward shaping the future of AI technology and its applications across various sectors. At a point when Meta aims to be the world’s largest AI assistant by the end of 2024, innovations by the company are bound to change how millions of Indians are used to interacting with technology in everyday life.
