Facebook has launched a new chat assistant for its Messenger app, M. Although, it a single letter assistant but according to Facebook, M is powered by artificial intelligence and offers suggestions by popping into an open conversation to suggest relevant content and capabilities.
The company has been testing M capabilities from quite a few months with a small number of users, but today they are officially expanding it to all Messenger users in the US. By suggesting helpful actions in chat, Facebook believes this will certainly be a game changer when it comes to natural interaction between two people.
Here is a short video demoing the feature in action:
Since, M relies on AI machine learning techniques, it is quite simple to bring it up while you are in a conversation. Simply chat with a friend or a group as you normally would. If the AI detects, you are planning for an event for example, M will pop up and make a relevant suggestion, it’s that simple.
You always have the option to ignore or dismiss a suggestion if it’s not helpful, and if you don’t want M’s assistance you can easily mute it in M settings.
At the moment, M will only make relevant suggestions regarding when it recognizes these intents or the following actions:
- Sending stickers: M shares fun sticker suggestions for your daily life interactions like “Thank you” or “Bye-bye.”
- Paying or requesting money: M recognizes when people are discussing payments and gives them the option of easily sending or requesting money.
- Sharing your location: M can suggest an option to share your location during a conversation.
- Making plans: If people are talking about getting together, M helps coordinating a plan.
- Starting a poll (in group conversations only): Have a hard time making decisions in a group? M lets you set a poll topic and vote in group conversations.
- Getting a Ride: Talking about going somewhere? M suggests “Get A Ride” and shares an option of Lyft or Uber.
M is launching today for all iOS and Android (with no word on Windows, as expected!) users in the US and will eventually roll out to other countries.
Are you excited to see M ? Let us know in the comments below.
