It’s like Siri and Cortana but not really. It’s more than that. At least, that’s what Facebook claims its new virtual assistant is. It’s genderless for one, making it more like Google Now than the aforementioned assistants from Apple and Microsoft. Another is it doesn’t just purely rely on AI; there’s a human element to it at the moment. Called the M trainers, these people make the tough call when a request seems too complicated for the AI. The service is being tested now around the Bay Area in the US and Facebook hopes to bring this to all Messenger users.
Yes, M is embedded in Messenger and Facebook hopes this new feature will make the app everyone’s first stop for mobile discovery. How M works is you just need to tap on the small button at the bottom of Messenger that’ll let you send a note to M. You message it the same way you would someone on the messaging service. It’ll decode what you’re saying and ask follow-up questions if needed. It’ll update you if the task you requested is completed.
Facebook promises though that they aren’t collecting any of your social data at the moment. It might in the future but they say that’ll be with “proper user consent.” Right now, it bases its answers to your inquiry based on what you tell it. It won’t try to pull data from your contacts.
What’s the most popular request Facebook employee testers had? Having the service call a cable company and endure the hold times. Yes, it can do something like that for you, too. Facebook hopes the system will be sophisticated enough to handle any requests but for now the human element is needed. And perhaps, it’ll be what sets them apart. But this can be a considerable investment if Facebook plans to make the feature available to everyone around the world. But then again, if this clicks, the returns for them might be great, including having advertisers invest in the development of the feature since they can see something of a market growing within Facebook’s app.
Source: Wired