Meta Builds AI Search Engine to Reduce Its Dependency on Google and Bing

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, is building its own artificial intelligence-powered search engine in order to reduce its dependence on answers from Google and Bing, The Information reported on Monday.

The company’s search engine will crawl “the web to provide conversational answers about current events to people using its Meta AI chatbot,” according to the report.

Meta’s AI chatbot is built into the search and messaging features on its apps, which include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. The chatbot currently displays search results from Google and Bing as part of its answers. Altogether, Meta’s apps have 3.27 billion users .

Monday’s news follows last week’s announcement that Meta had signed a deal with Reuters to include the news organization’s content in its AI responses.

The Reuters deal also came after CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he believed his company would strike “certain partnerships” to bolster its AI responses, but that “individual creators or publishers tend to overestimate the value” of their content.

“My guess is that there are going to be certain partnerships that get made when content is really important and valuable,” Zuckerberg told The Verge .

Moving forward, Meta’s AI chatbot will cite Reuters’ stories in its answers, as well as provide links to the outlet’s content. Reuters will be compensated for its reports, a source told Axios.

Meta’s stock is up 1% on Monday morning to $579.21 per share. The company has been on a big run in 2024, with Meta’s shares increasing 67% since the start of the year. Meta is set to report its Q3 earnings on Wednesday afternoon.

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