Facebook have just confirmed that they participate in the completion
of personal digital assistant technology. Revealed by David Marcus, Facebook
starts testing a new service called M.
Does this mean that Facebook will compete with Google Now,
Siri and Cortana? Maybe yes, maybe not. Because Facebook M is a virtual
assistant that's designed to be plugged into Messenger application. It can help
users to find information, shop and send items on their behalf.
Powered by artificial intelligence technology, M provides
more value to Facebook Messenger that will ultimately improve the
competitiveness of Facebook messaging application to other similar
applications. When other developers only play around with stickers and gaming,
Facebook bring the competition to a higher level.
What makes M different is instead of letting users to give
'lessons' to the artificial intelligence systems, Facebook use real people to
answer what are requested by the users, train the technology to give similar responses
in the future.
Described by Marcus that M is not like the other artificial
intelligence services that have existed today, M can complete orders on behalf
of users. For example, buy a product, send gifts to loved ones, book a
restaurant, arrange travel, make an appointment and others.
Although its user coverage is not as extensive as Cortana,
Google Now or Siri, but in the future it is not impossible that what has been
developed by Facebook will jump to the area that's dominated by the three
competitors.
M is currently still in the testing phase, we probably will
not see it released to the public in the near future.