Meta aims for search engine independence
A recent report (subscription required) reveals Meta is working on a web-crawling search engine for its chatbot, aiming to provide up-to-date, conversational responses on current events through Meta AI. The company has also teamed up with Reuters to ensure its AI can tackle news-related questions more accurately.Meta has apparently been at work indexing the web for around eight months, aiming to integrate this data into Meta AI and potentially rival Google Search and Bing. While Meta hinted at its web-crawling tech earlier this year – framing it as part of “training AI models or improving products” – it stopped short of confirming a full search backend. The project is reportedly under the leadership of senior engineering manager Xueyuan Su.The report suggests this move is Meta’s response to feeling “stung” by its reliance on other tech giants, especially after Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) feature disrupted Meta’s ad revenue. Since ATT launched in 2021, Meta has estimated a hit of over $10 billion in ad earnings. In fact, the company was so rattled by the feature that it faced a lawsuit for allegedly finding ways around ATT’s rules.
The idea here is that CEO Mark Zuckerberg is pushing for Meta to stand on its own, aiming to avoid a similar dependency mess if Google or Microsoft were to restrict its access to web searches. It’s not clear if Meta currently pays either of them for that access, but the goal seems to be full independence.
Meta AI is already available in many countries around the world. | Video credit – Meta
I think it’s hardly a shocker that Meta wants more control over its own tech – after all, this is the company building its own Metaverse, right? But all kidding aside, Meta’s big AI investments seem to be gaining serious traction. In fact, Zuckerberg shared on Threads back in August that Meta AI now has over 185 million active users every week and more than 400 million every month. So, it’s no surprise the company is doubling down on this momentum.