Meta AI: Definition and Examples

Meta AI refers to the artificial intelligence division of Meta (formerly Facebook), responsible for developing language models like LLaMA and for integrating AI features into Meta's ecosystem products.

Full definition

Meta AI is the artificial intelligence research and development branch of Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Threads. Founded as Facebook AI Research (FAIR) in 2013, this division has become one of the most influential AI research labs in the world, contributing to major advances in deep learning, computer vision, and natural language processing.

One of Meta AI's most significant contributions is the LLaMA (Large Language Model Meta AI) family of language models, released as open source. This openness strategy distinguishes Meta from competitors like OpenAI or Google, allowing the scientific community and developers free access to model weights for adaptation, fine-tuning, and deployment in their own applications.

Meta AI also manifests as a conversational assistant integrated directly into Meta's ecosystem apps. Users can interact with this assistant in Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, and via the site meta.ai to ask questions, generate images, get recommendations, or accomplish various tasks. This assistant relies on LLaMA models and directly competes with ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude.

In prompt engineering, understanding Meta AI's specifics is important because its open source models (LLaMA, Code Llama, Llama Guard) are massively used by companies wanting to host their own AI solutions. Prompting techniques may vary depending on the model's architecture, and Meta models exhibit their own behaviors and instruction formats.

Etymology

The name "Meta AI" combines "Meta", Facebook's new name adopted in 2021 (from the ancient Greek μετά meaning "beyond"), and "AI" for Artificial Intelligence. The rebranding reflected Mark Zuckerberg's vision toward the metaverse and artificial intelligence as strategic pillars of the company.

Concrete examples

Use the Meta AI assistant in WhatsApp to get a quick answer

@Meta AI Summarize the main differences between supervised and unsupervised learning in 5 key points.

Use a self-hosted LLaMA model for advanced prompt engineering

[INST] You are a digital marketing expert. Analyze this landing page and propose 5 concrete improvements to increase the conversion rate. Here is the content: {CONTENT} [/INST]

Generate an image with Meta AI via Instagram

Imagine a minimalist illustration of a robot reading a book in a futuristic library, flat design style, pastel colors.

Practical usage

In prompt engineering, Meta AI models (notably LLaMA) use a specific instruction format with [INST] tags that must be mastered for optimal results. When working with locally hosted LLaMA models or via third-party APIs, structure your prompts with a clear system prompt and explicit instructions between tags. Meta's open source ecosystem also allows fine-tuning models on your own data, opening personalization possibilities impossible with closed models.

Related concepts

LLaMAOpen Source AILarge Language Model (LLM)FAIR (Facebook AI Research)

FAQ

What is the difference between Meta AI and ChatGPT?

Meta AI and ChatGPT are two competing conversational assistants. ChatGPT is developed by OpenAI and relies on GPT models, while Meta AI uses LLaMA models developed by Meta. The major difference lies in strategy: LLaMA models are open source, allowing anyone to download and modify them, whereas GPT models remain proprietary. Meta AI is integrated directly into WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram, while ChatGPT has its own app.

Are Meta AI models really free and open source?

Meta's LLaMA models are distributed under a permissive license that allows free use, including for commercial purposes for companies with fewer than 700 million monthly active users. The model weights, training code, and documentation are publicly accessible. However, the Meta AI assistant integrated into Meta's apps is not open source—it is a hosted service by Meta that uses these models internally.

How to use Meta AI for prompt engineering?

You can use Meta AI for prompt engineering in two ways. First, through the built-in assistant in Meta apps (WhatsApp, Instagram, meta.ai) for simple conversational tasks. Second, by downloading LLaMA models to run locally using tools like Ollama, vLLM, or llama.cpp—this approach gives you full control over generation parameters and allows you to freely experiment with different prompting techniques without API costs.

How to use this prompt

Copy the prompt with the button above.
Paste it into ChatGPT, Claude or your favorite AI assistant.
Replace the bracketed variables with your details, then refine the result.

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