According to an interview with Nikkei Asia on Wednesday, Meta’s top executives, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, and Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth, are primarily focused on artificial intelligence.
Bosworth explained that while some of the work will benefit the development of the metaverse, Meta’s main priority is AI. This highlights the significance of AI to Meta, as other major tech companies like Microsoft and Alphabet are also investing in this area.
In February, Meta created a product group that concentrates on generative AI, which is a set of machine learning techniques that enables computers to produce human-like text, drawings, and other types of media. Meta possesses a large language model called LLaMa that it intends to release to researchers. Like other AI models, LLaMa can answer questions and summarize documents.
Applications such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft Bing AI, and Google’s Bard are powered by large language models.
Despite posting a $13.72 billion loss in 2022, Meta’s Reality Labs division, overseen by Bosworth and responsible for the company’s metaverse technologies and projects, is home to the bulk of the company’s revenue, generated by digital advertising. In 2022, the company reported $116.61 billion in revenue.
Bosworth believes that Meta will launch some commercial AI applications this year that could benefit its profit-driving ad business, such as using AI to create ads with multiple images that cater to different audiences rather than relying on a single-image campaign.
However, Bosworth also expressed his desire to use AI in the metaverse during his interview with Nikkei.
“In the future, you might be able to just describe the world you want to create and have the large language model generate that world for you,” Bosworth said in the report. “And so it makes things like content creation much more accessible to more people.”