# How do you use Meta AI in WhatsApp and Instagram? Date: 2024-04-25 · Author: Robert Scales · https://guidetoartificialintelligence.com/en/learn/use-meta-ai-whatsapp-instagram/ **Answer:** If you live in the US or one of the 13 English-speaking countries where it has just launched, you can open a chat with Meta AI, ask it from the search bar, or call it into a group chat by typing @Meta AI followed by your request. It answers questions with current web information and makes images from a description, for free, inside the app you already use. Meta AI is Meta's free assistant, and since last week it runs on Llama 3, the company's newest language model. It sits inside WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and Facebook, so you can ask it something without installing a new app or making a new account. Meta first showed it in September 2023 as a US-only beta; on April 18 it began rolling out in English to more countries and opened a website, meta.ai, for use on a computer. If you already use ChatGPT, the main difference is where it lives. Meta AI is built for quick help in the middle of a conversation: settling a plan with friends, looking something up, or making a picture to share. ## Where it is available Besides the United States, the English rollout covers 13 countries. In the Americas: Canada and Jamaica. In Africa: Ghana, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. In Asia and the Pacific: Pakistan, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand. Rollouts arrive in stages, so it may reach your phone a few days after a friend's. If you don't see it yet, update the app and check again later. People elsewhere, including Europe, are not part of this launch. ## Four ways to reach it 1. **A one-on-one chat.** Open Meta AI as a conversation, the same way you would message a person, and type your question. 2. **The search bar.** In WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and Facebook, Meta AI now appears in search, so you can ask a question there and get an answer drawn from the web without leaving the app. 3. **A group chat.** Type @Meta AI in a group, followed by your request. It answers in the thread where everyone can see it. 4. **The web.** At meta.ai you can use it on a computer, and log in if you want your conversations saved. On Facebook there is a fifth route: you can ask Meta AI for more information about a post in your feed. ## A worked example: planning a weekend with friends Say four friends are planning a Saturday in a city they don't know well. In the group chat, one of them types: ```prompt @Meta AI We're four adults spending Saturday in Halifax. Two of us are vegetarian, we have no car, and we'd like one outdoor activity and one restaurant with a view for dinner. Suggest three plans with rough times, and keep each plan to five lines. ``` Everyone sees the reply and can react to it. A follow-up keeps it short and practical: ```prompt @Meta AI We like plan 2. Make a checklist of what to book in advance and what to bring. ``` Before you book, open each venue's own website to confirm opening hours, prices and whether you need a reservation. Meta AI pulls in current web results, but, as Meta itself warns, its answers can be incomplete or out of date. ## Making images Meta AI also draws pictures from text. In chats you can type @Meta AI followed by /imagine and a description, a method Meta introduced last fall. In the US, a faster version now shows the image while you type on WhatsApp and meta.ai, changing every few letters, and it can animate a picture or turn it into a GIF. ```prompt @Meta AI /imagine a round badge with a canoe on a calm lake at sunrise, pine trees, the words "Lake Weekend 2024", flat illustration style ``` Photorealistic images made with Meta's tools carry a visible watermark so others can tell they came from AI. Avoid prompts that use real people's faces or names without their agreement. > **Try it:** In a one-on-one chat with Meta AI, ask the same question two ways: once with no details ("ideas for dinner") and once with three details (who is eating, what you have in the fridge, how much time you have). Compare how specific each answer is. ## What happens to your chats? Meta's privacy notes draw a line between your ordinary messages and the ones you send to its AI. According to Meta, what you write privately to friends and relatives is not used to train its AI models. The messages you send to Meta AI are different: Meta says it uses what people share with its AI features to improve its products, and it may pass certain questions to search partners, such as Bing, to fetch current answers. Within a conversation, the AI may also keep what you tell it so its replies fit you better. In a group chat, Meta AI cannot join unless someone invites it, and it cannot message you or the group first. Once there, it reads only messages that mention @Meta AI or reply to one, not the rest of the conversation. Still, anything you write after @Meta AI goes to Meta, so leave out health details, addresses, account numbers and anything about other people they would not want shared. You can clear what you have told it: typing /reset-ai in a chat with the AI deletes your AI messages in that conversation, in WhatsApp, Instagram or Messenger. Meta also says that chatting with its AI in WhatsApp does not connect your WhatsApp account details to your Facebook or Instagram profile. For the full details, read the Generative AI Privacy Guide and Meta AI terms linked inside the apps before you rely on it for anything sensitive. ## Sources - Meet Your New Assistant: Meta AI, Built With Llama 3: https://about.fb.com/news/2024/04/meta-ai-assistant-built-with-llama-3/ - Introducing New AI Experiences Across Our Family of Apps and Devices: https://about.fb.com/news/2023/09/introducing-ai-powered-assistants-characters-and-creative-tools/ - Privacy Matters: Meta's Generative AI Features: https://about.fb.com/news/2023/09/privacy-matters-metas-generative-ai-features/