Facebook is shutting down the coolest part of their AI-powered assistant on Jan 19th
Facebook had high hopes for their AI-powered virtual assistant — dubbed simply “M” — when they unveiled it back in 2015. You can find limited functionality of M inside of Facebook Messenger right now, recommending stickers or reactions based on the context of your messages, but most users never got to see its full potential.
M was originally billed as an artificial intelligence assistant that you could communicate with to help you accomplish tasks. Everything from telling M to make reservations, or book plane tickets, it certainly sounded promising especially since it got a head start on Google Assistant. Unfortunately, these more advanced features never left beta (where about 2,000 users were still testing) and it seems Facebook is now finally ready to scrap the project and move on.
Starting on January 19th, this initial beta version of M will officially be shut down. While the concierge feature is being killed, the context-based suggestions most of you know and love will continue to live on inside Messenger, so you don’t have to worry about that going away anytime soon. According to Buzzfeed, Facebook says they’ll be using what they’ve learned with M to help bolster other AI projects within the company. You’ll have to stay tuned to see what Facebook is planning next.