Meta AI is fun, accessible, and free. Maybe it’s finally time to make AI chatbots part of your life

Last week, like many others, I noticed a blue ring icon appear at the top right corner above the search bar on WhatsApp. I had been anticipating the rollout of Meta’s new AI chatbot but was not particularly excited. In fact, Meta had been testing its AI chatbot for months in India, but now Meta AI is rolling out to the company’s main apps, including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.

Honestly, my interest in AI chatbots peaked a long time ago. I have been occasionally using them for specific things, but they haven’t grown on me, nor have I become addicted to them. I still Google all my search queries, spend a lot of time on Reddit for Bollywood stuff, and get news from websites. That leaves less scope for a user like myself to make an effort to download an app or change my habits to log into a new service on a browser to use an AI chatbot.