{"id":337913,"date":"2017-04-07T18:42:34","date_gmt":"2017-04-07T10:42:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2017\/04\/07\/facebook-messenger-m-virtual-assistant\/"},"modified":"2017-04-07T18:42:34","modified_gmt":"2017-04-07T10:42:34","slug":"facebook-beats-apple-to-ai-assistant-chat-integration-with-m-for-messenger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/facebook-beats-apple-to-ai-assistant-chat-integration-with-m-for-messenger\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook Beats Apple to AI Assistant Chat Integration With &#8216;M&#8217; For Messenger"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"body\" readability=\"59.436669619132\">Facebook <a href=\"https:\/\/newsroom.fb.com\/news\/2017\/04\/m-now-offers-suggestions-to-make-your-messenger-experience-more-useful-seamless-and-delightful\/\">announced<\/a> its first virtual assistant on Thursday in the form of &#8220;M&#8221;, which privately interjects in chat threads on Messenger to offer users suggestions related to the conversation.<\/p>\n<p>The feature goes beyond the platform&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2016\/04\/12\/facebook-f8-chatbots-live-video\/\">chat bot<\/a> technology, offering recommendations for relevant stickers, GIFs, payments, rides and meeting times now appear to each user above the message composer in chat threads. The service launched as a beta test in December but was rolled out to all iOS and Android users in the U.S. as part of an app update.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.macrumors.com\/article-new\/2017\/04\/newsroombanner-m-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-559287\"\/><br \/>According to Facebook, M relies on AI machine learning techniques and is capable of learning the more it is used. Users can ignore or dismiss suggestions if they&#8217;re not helpful, and the assistant can easily be muted it in settings. The full list of possible suggestions are as follows.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Sending stickers: M shares fun sticker suggestions for your daily life interactions like \u201cThank you\u201d or \u201cBye-bye.\u201d<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Paying or requesting money: M recognizes when people are discussing payments and gives them the option of easily sending or requesting money.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Sharing your location: M can suggest an option to share your location during a conversation.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Making plans: If people are talking about getting together, M helps coordinating a plan.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>Starting a poll (in group conversations only): Have a hard time making decisions in a group? M lets you set a poll topic and vote in group conversations. Getting a Ride: Talking about going somewhere? M suggests \u201cGet A Ride\u201d and shares an option of Lyft or Uber.<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Apple is known to have looked at a similar implementation of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/roundup\/siri\/\">Siri<\/a> in its iMessage platform. A patent published last November for a &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2016\/11\/17\/apple-explores-chat-siri-messages-threads\/\">virtual assistant in a communication session<\/a>&#8221; depicts a scenario in which users can invoke Siri from within chat threads to get answers to relevant queries, complete scheduling tasks, and more.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.macrumors.com\/article-new\/2017\/04\/siri-messages-800x566-800x566.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"566\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-559289\"\/><br \/>A rumor last month claimed that Apple plans to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2017\/03\/28\/siri-rumor-icloud-integration-learning-ios11\/\">introduce Siri iMessage integration<\/a> in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/roundup\/ios-11\/\">iOS 11<\/a>, which is expected to be announced at this year&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/roundup\/wwdc\/\">Worldwide Developers Conference<\/a> held in June. The feature is said to be part of a major upgrade to Siri&#8217;s capabilities that would fit out the virtual assistant with powerful contextual learning abilities and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/roundup\/icloud\/\">iCloud<\/a> integration.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Facebook <a href=\"https:\/\/newsroom.fb.com\/news\/2017\/04\/m-now-offers-suggestions-to-make-your-messenger-experience-more-useful-seamless-and-delightful\/\">announced<\/a> its first virtual assistant on Thursday in the form of &#8220;M&#8221;, which privately interjects in chat threads on Messenger to offer users suggestions related to the conversation.<\/p>\n<p>The feature goes beyond the platform&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2016\/04\/12\/facebook-f8-chatbots-live-video\/\">chat bot<\/a> technology, offering recommendations for relevant stickers, GIFs, payments, rides and meeting times now appear to each user above the message composer in chat threads. The service launched as a beta test in December but was rolled out to all iOS and Android users in the U.S. as part of an app update.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.macrumors.com\/article-new\/2017\/04\/newsroombanner-m-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-559287\" \/><br \/>\n<br \/>\nAccording to Facebook, M relies on AI machine learning techniques and is capable of learning the more it is used. Users can ignore or dismiss suggestions if they&#8217;re not helpful, and the assistant can easily be muted it in settings. The full list of possible suggestions are as follows.<br \/>\n<br \/>\n<em><\/p>\n<ul>\n <\/p>\n<li>Sending stickers: M shares fun sticker suggestions for your daily life interactions like \u201cThank you\u201d or \u201cBye-bye.\u201d\n<li>Paying or requesting money: M recognizes when people are discussing payments and gives them the option of easily sending or requesting money.\n<li>Sharing your location: M can suggest an option to share your location during a conversation.\n<li>Making plans: If people are talking about getting together, M helps coordinating a plan.\n<li>Starting a poll (in group conversations only): Have a hard time making decisions in a group? M lets you set a poll topic and vote in group conversations.\n<p>Getting a Ride: Talking about going somewhere? M suggests \u201cGet A Ride\u201d and shares an option of Lyft or Uber.<\/ul>\n<p><\/em>Apple is known to have looked at a similar implementation of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/roundup\/siri\/\">Siri<\/a> in its iMessage platform. A patent published last November for a &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2016\/11\/17\/apple-explores-chat-siri-messages-threads\/\">virtual assistant in a communication session<\/a>&#8221; depicts a scenario in which users can invoke Siri from within chat threads to get answers to relevant queries, complete scheduling tasks, and more. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/cdn.macrumors.com\/article-new\/2017\/04\/siri-messages-800x566-800x566.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"566\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-559289\" \/><br \/>\n<br \/>\nA rumor last month claimed that Apple plans to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2017\/03\/28\/siri-rumor-icloud-integration-learning-ios11\/\">introduce Siri iMessage integration<\/a> in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/roundup\/ios-11\/\">iOS 11<\/a>, which is expected to be announced at this year&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/roundup\/wwdc\/\">Worldwide Developers Conference<\/a> held in June. The feature is said to be part of a major upgrade to Siri&#8217;s capabilities that would fit out the virtual assistant with powerful contextual learning abilities and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/roundup\/icloud\/\">iCloud<\/a> integration.<\/p>\n<div class=\"linkback\">Tag: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/roundup\/facebook-messenger\/\">Facebook Messenger<\/a> <\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/forums.macrumors.com\/threads\/facebook-messenger-m-virtual-assistant.2040745\/\">Discuss this article<\/a> in our forums<\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.macrumors.com\/~ff\/MacRumors-All?a=kwGWXfse4F4:5CGqlf33zCI:6W8y8wAjSf4\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/MacRumors-All?d=6W8y8wAjSf4\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.macrumors.com\/~ff\/MacRumors-All?a=kwGWXfse4F4:5CGqlf33zCI:qj6IDK7rITs\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/MacRumors-All?d=qj6IDK7rITs\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/MacRumors-All\/~4\/kwGWXfse4F4\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" alt=\"\"\/> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[68,69,59,26],"class_list":["post-337913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-apple","tag-macrumors","tag-media","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337913\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}