According to The Information, from the October 28 report, Meta is working on its own AI search engine. The motivation for this was cutting dependance on Google and Bing. The sources reveal that an in-house search engine could soon let Meta directly control more of the information available to its users via its own platforms.
The search engine from Meta would summarize recent information, events, and updates through conversational AI directly via Meta’s AI chatbot. This would be across all of the Meta suite of social media apps: Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. Currently, Meta’s chatbot pulls its answers from Google and Bing.
For the past eight months, Meta’s engineering team has reportedly been working on a database that powers the search engine. They put a specific focus on making information accessible and tailored to Meta’s unique platforms. The news comes as other tech giants, like OpenAI and Apple, are also building proprietary search tools. OpenAI recently introduced “SearchGPT,” a search engine prototype planned for integration into ChatGPT. On the other hand, Apple has reportedly taken steps to reduce its own dependency on Google.
This move could also mean a shift for Meta back toward news content. That’s a direction it had stepped back from in recent years. Just last week, Meta announced a new partnership with Reuters. This marks its first major move into news content since winding down its “News Tab” feature and minimizing political news in 2020.
