Meta is leveraging artificial intelligence to rapidly launch new apps, with more on the horizon. During the company's second-quarter earnings call this week, CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that Meta has several new applications in development, following a recent flurry of releases. These include an app for Marketplace sellers, a Forum app for Facebook Groups, a vibe-coded gaming app, a new photos app from Instagram, and an experimental AI bedtime story app.
For years, Meta has attempted—and often failed—to create successful standalone social apps to complement its core platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Now, the company says large language models (LLMs) are enabling faster software deployment, allowing teams to test new concepts more quickly than ever before.
“I’m excited about how AI is helping our teams speed up product development,” Zuckerberg told investors during Wednesday’s call. “Earlier this year, we shipped Instagram Instants. We also just launched Forum, a standalone Groups app, and Seller, a standalone Marketplace app. I expect it to become a lot easier to ship new apps. So we are planning to build out more ideas and use our recommendation systems to scale them.”
He added, “AI is improving our core business; it’s making our apps more relevant and delivering better results for businesses. We’re starting to deliver more novel products, and we’ll have a lot more there soon as well.”
This isn’t Meta’s first foray into experimental app development. In its earlier days, the company—then known as Facebook—ran an internal incubator called Creative Labs, designed to test new social concepts. That effort yielded a handful of launches, including the photo-sharing app Slingshot, anonymous chat app Rooms, Flipboard competitor Paper, the Moments photo-sharing app, and collaborative video app Riff. These experiments ended in 2015 when the incubator was shut down, and all apps were eventually discontinued due to lack of audience traction.
In the early 2020s, Meta tried again with its internal R&D group, the NPE Team. This division tested apps such as the chat app Bump, social music app Aux, task app Move, dating app Spark, calling app CatchUp, zine maker E.gg, events app Venue, creator Q&A app Hotline, Cameo competitor Super, and couples app via TechCrunch AI