Digital assistants like Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana and Google Now all share one key thing in common: the more they know about you, the more useful they become.
And so that’s presumably why Facebook has just launched its own digital assistant, M, to a few hundred people out here in the Bay Area. Unfortunately, I’m not one of them. So for the time being at least we have to take Facebook’s word for it when it comes to what M can do.
“M is a personal digital assistant inside of Messenger that completes tasks and finds information on your behalf,” explains David Marcus, head of Messenger at Facebook. “It’s powered by artificial intelligence that’s trained and supervised by people.”
“Unlike other AI-based services in the market, M can actually complete tasks on your behalf. It can purchase items, get gifts delivered to your loved ones, book restaurants, travel arrangements, appointments and way more.”
