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Facebook today rolled out a new virtual assistant called "M" inside its Messenger app for a limited number of users in the Bay Area, reports Wired. "M" is powered by both artificial intelligence and Facebook employees, enabling Messenger users to ask questions and complete tasks such as making restaurant reservations, ordering birthday flowers or discovering the best places to go hiking in California.

Facebook-Messenger-M.jpg

Using "M" is as simple as beginning a conversation with the assistant through the Messenger app, at which point it will begin providing you with recommendations or ask further questions to narrow down your request. Unlike Siri, "M" does not have a gender, nor it is possible to know whether you are being helped by a bot or a real Facebook employee -- but Facebook aims to make sure that every request is answered.

"M" aims to take on Siri, Google Now, Cortana and a growing selection of virtual assistants as the "first stop for anyone looking to do or buy anything":
It won't take long for Messenger's users to realize M can accomplish much more than your standard digital helper, suspects David Marcus, vice president of messaging products at Facebook. "It can perform tasks that none of the others can," Marcus says. That's because, in addition to using artificial intelligence to complete its tasks, M is powered by actual people.
Marcus believes that "M" will slowly expand beyond the Bay Area and eventually reach all of Messenger's 700 million users around the world.

Facebook Messenger [Direct Link] is free on the App Store for iPhone.

Article Link: Facebook Testing Siri Competitor 'M' Inside Messenger App
 

naeS1Sean

macrumors 6502a
Oct 14, 2011
762
1,230
Scranton, PA
Another thing thats going to fall through. Do they really think these types of things will catch on. Facebook phone for 1 example. Just put those efforts into making your core, popular product (Facebook) work better.
 

bushido

Suspended
Mar 26, 2008
8,070
2,755
Germany
Does anyone really use these virtual assistants? The only thing I regularly use it for is to set a countdown for my cooking!
i dont use them either, there are moments in my life where i am just happy i do not have to talk and think of what i want to say. i will take a remote with a skip and back button over it anyday (example). same reason i never use the voice commands on my kindle fire tv or xbox. its just too much work lol
 
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1961 Scout

macrumors member
Jul 3, 2015
43
47
Well it shouldn't take much to take on Siri. Sadly I am forced to use google now all the time except to set the alarm...Siri has fallen way way behind....
 

Razeus

macrumors 603
Jul 11, 2008
5,348
2,030
Siri is a joke at this point. Cortana, version 1 mind you, does more out of the box on day one than Siri has done in the last 3 years. I'm not sure what Apple is doing over there, but it's definitely not software inner workings of Siri.

After looking how Google Photos works automatically, I'm not sure what Apple is doing anymore to improve our lifes/save us time with software other than coming up with hardware designs.
 
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RodThePlod

macrumors 6502a
Sep 7, 2005
810
453
London
This set up certainly doesn't sound like it'll be easy to scale to me! I guess there'll come a tipping point at some stage where they'll need to change the model...
 
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Frazzle

macrumors regular
Mar 1, 2007
206
78
The old Soylent Green movie comes to mind... "M is made of people!"

Seriously though, pretty soon we'll need a virtual office manager to handle the virtual assistants.

Will they expect us to order virtual flowers for international virtual secretary day?
 

Neo Utopia

macrumors newbie
Jan 25, 2009
13
0
I use Siri more and more these days; navigation (in the car), calendar (in the car), timer (mostly for cooking) and weather on occasion. I can't image myself using an A.I. assistant for much more than this.
 

e-coli

macrumors 68000
Jul 27, 2002
1,935
1,149
I deleted messenger long ago when I realized it was always listening. Thats just beyond unacceptable.
 

66318

macrumors regular
Jan 31, 2006
130
56
Does anyone really use these virtual assistants? The only thing I regularly use it for is to set a countdown for my cooking!
I use Siri frequently for the following:

  1. Remind me about something when I get home/leave work/etc
  2. "Hey siri, what time is it" at night in bed. I have terrible vision without glasses and no alarm clock is readable by sight.
  3. Timers similar to your use
  4. When a job had a commute running next to the baseball stadium "Hey Siri, are the Blahs playing today?" as I left work to know to take an alternate route
  5. When riding my motorcycle, Siri is reachable thanks to my bluetooth enabled helmet. Good for switching music or getting directions to the nearest gas station when needed.
  6. Asking for the weather forecast when packing
  7. Unit conversions since the US is still stuck using King Henry's foot to measure things while otherwise swearing off anything British.
I've used it for many other things as well, but not as frequent as the above uses. Thankfully the use of "Hey siri, dial 911" has been pretty limited when out riding the motorcycle, but nice to know will work if something does go badly wrong on the road.
 
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