Meta Muse Spark 1.1 reaches consumers through Meta AI
Meta added Muse Spark 1.1 to its free chatbot and introduced Facebook video verification and a Marketplace seller app.
By Wei-Lin Zhao · AI Correspondent
· 3 min read
Meta Muse Spark 1.1 is now available to consumers through the company’s Meta AI chatbot, at no charge, in a limited set of markets. The release gives Meta’s free assistant longer-context and agent-style functions while the company extends AI features across Facebook, Marketplace and, soon, WhatsApp.
Meta Platforms Inc. said the chatbot update uses Muse Spark 1.1, the large language model it introduced earlier this month. The company says the model can handle prompts of up to 1 million tokens and can set up groups of AI agents to work on more involved tasks. Meta did not name the initial markets, disclose usage targets or provide new performance benchmarks with the consumer rollout.
The updated assistant is available through Meta AI on the web and mobile. Meta said it plans to bring Muse Spark 1.1 to the version of Meta AI inside WhatsApp within a few weeks.
What can Meta Muse Spark 1.1 do?
Meta says Muse Spark 1.1 improves the chatbot’s ability to gather information from several places and act on it in a sequence. In Meta’s examples, a user planning travel could ask the assistant to research destinations and look at calendar availability, while someone remodeling a kitchen could have it search for online furniture retailers.
The company is also pitching the new Meta AI as more useful for research-style work. Meta says the assistant can spend several minutes collecting information on a topic from sources including research papers and social networks, then summarize or visualize what it found if the user asks. Those claims are Meta’s description of the product; the company did not provide independent evaluation data in the announcement.
Meta AI is also getting notification features. The chatbot can alert users about events they care about and create recurring updates, including daily weather notifications.
Facebook gets verification and a seller app
Alongside the chatbot upgrade, Meta announced two Facebook additions: Facebook Verified and Seller. Facebook Verified lets users confirm their accounts by submitting a video selfie. People who complete the process receive a checkmark badge on their profiles.
Meta said Facebook Verified is free for users who are over 18 and comply with its terms of service. The announcement did not describe the review process in detail or say how widely the feature will be available at launch.
Seller is a separate mobile app for people who list goods on Facebook Marketplace. The app includes an AI feature for creating listings, with generated sales copy, pricing suggestions and automatic category placement for new items.
Meta said both Facebook Verified and Seller will start as limited-market pilots before a broader global release. The phased approach is consistent with the Meta AI launch, where the company is putting new AI capabilities in front of consumers without yet giving a full country list or adoption timeline.
This story draws on original reporting from SiliconANGLE.
