Meta AI is finally coming to Europe almost a year after its rollout in the region was paused due to regulatory concerns. Starting this week, the company’s AI assistant will be available across WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger apps for users in 41 European countries and 21 overseas territories. However, the AI chatbot’s functionality will remain limited to text-only communication for now.
Meta initially launched its AI assistant in the US in 2023, but plans for a European rollout were interrupted after the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) intervened. The regulator required Meta to postpone training its AI model on user-generated content published on Facebook and Instagram. Additionally, Meta put on hold the release of its flagship large language model, Llama, in the European Union (EU) due to similar regulatory challenges.
Features Available to European Users
Despite these limitations, Meta AI will offer European users certain text-based functionalities. The chatbot can help generate ideas, assist in trip planning, and provide information sourced from the web. On Instagram, users will be able to use Meta AI to display select types of content in their feed. However, key features available elsewhere, such as creating or editing images and asking questions about photos, are currently not accessible in Europe.
Meta emphasizes that no data from EU users was used to train its AI model. “This launch is the result of almost a year of intensive engagement with various European regulators, and so far we are only offering a text-based model in the region that has not been trained on data from EU users. We will continue to work with regulators to ensure that people in Europe have access to the same AI innovations Meta is already making available to the rest of the world,” stated Ellie Heatrick, a Meta spokesperson.
Previously, Meta began introducing some AI features to its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses in the EU last November, reminds NIX Solutions. However, these devices currently do not support the AI functions that allow users to ask the glasses about their surroundings. The company has expressed its intention to continue working toward achieving feature parity between the European and US versions of Meta AI. We’ll keep you updated as these capabilities gradually expand.