Meta is advancing its efforts to make its productive AI products available to more users. In addition to testing the Meta AI chatbot with users in countries like India on WhatsApp, the company is also experimenting with placing Meta AI in Instagram’s search bar for both AI chat and content discovery.
The search query in the search bar takes you to a DM chat with Meta AI where you can ask questions or use one of the preloaded messages. The design of the prompt screen prompted Perplexity AI CEO Aravind Srinivas to point out that the interface uses a similar design to the startup’s search screen.
But beyond that, it could also help you discover new content on Instagram. For example, a video on Threads posted by a user indicates that you can tap on a prompt like “Beautiful Maui Sunset Reels” to search for Reels related to that topic.
Separately, some users TechCrunch spoke with were able to ask Meta AI to search for Reels recommendations.
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This means Meta plans to take the power of generative AI beyond text generation and use it to surface new content from a network like Instagram.
Meta confirmed its Meta AI experiment on Instagram with TechCrunch. However, the company did not specify whether it uses genetic AI technology in the search.
“Our productive AI-based experiences are in various phases of development, and we are testing a number of them publicly in a limited capacity,” a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch.
You can find a ton of posts about the quality of Instagram search. So it wouldn’t be surprising if Meta wants to use genetic AI to improve search.
Also, Meta would like Instagram to have better discoverability than TikTok. Last year, Google introduced a new perspective feature to display results from Reddit and TikTok. Earlier this week, reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi noted on X that Instagram is working on it an option called “Visibility outside of Instagram” to potentially display posts as part of search engine results.
