Meta is expanding Meta AI to all users in India, bringing its Llama 3-powered chatbot into some of the company’s most widely used apps in the country. The launch follows a limited test that began during the general elections and now moves the tool from selected users to broad availability.
The rollout matters because Meta AI is not being treated as a separate experiment hidden away in one product. It is appearing inside WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, Facebook and the Meta.AI website, placing the chatbot directly where people already search, chat, scroll and share.
Where Meta AI is now available
Meta started testing Meta AI in India in April, initially making it available to select users across WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and Facebook. Days later, the company rolled out the bot in more than a dozen countries, but India was not included at that point, likely because the general elections were being held in the country at that time.
Now the company is making the chatbot available to all users in India through the search bar in its apps. Meta is also offering access through the Meta.AI website, giving users another route to the same assistant outside the company’s social and messaging apps.
For now, there is one major limitation: Meta AI currently supports English and no other local languages. That language gap is especially notable because the rollout is aimed at India’s large and varied user base, including 500 million WhatsApp users and hundreds of millions of people using Meta’s other apps.
What users can do with the chatbot
Meta AI works in a familiar way for anyone who has used products such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini or Anthropic’s Claude. Users can ask it for help with everyday tasks, including recipe ideas, workout planning, email drafting and summaries of text.
Inside Instagram, Meta AI can recommend Reels based on a search query. On Facebook, users may see a Meta AI prompt in the feed that lets them ask questions connected to a post they are viewing.
For example, if a user sees a photo of the aurora borealis, they could ask Meta AI about the best places and the best times to see the northern lights. That makes the chatbot less like a standalone search box and more like a layer attached to content already appearing in Meta’s apps.
On WhatsApp, Meta AI can be used in a one-on-one chat. It can also be called into a group chat for tasks such as planning a trip or deciding on a movie to watch.
Group chats, context and controls
Meta says the chatbot does not have the context of a group conversation beyond the text used when someone mentions or replies to Meta AI. In other words, the assistant is designed to respond to the specific interaction directed at it, not to the full chat history around it.
The company also said it fine-tuned its model based on users’ conversations with Meta AI. That detail is important because the chatbot is being placed inside communication products where people may treat the assistant as part of a normal chat experience.
Users cannot turn off or hide Meta AI functionality in Meta’s apps, according to the company. They can, however, choose to search without invoking the chatbot.
Image generation and bias concerns
Meta AI can also generate images from text prompts. That feature brings creative uses into the product, but it also raises questions about how the model represents people, places and visual culture.
TechCrunch found in May that Meta AI showed a strong tendency to add turbans when generating images of Indian men. It also found other biases, including repeated generation of an old-school Indian house with vibrant colors, wooden columns and styled roofs.
Meta said at the time that it was continuing to update its models, but it is not clear whether the company has made changes in those areas. A spokesperson told TechCrunch:
“This is a new technology, and it may not always return the response we intend, which is the same for all generative AI systems. Since we launched, we’ve constantly released updates and improvements to our models, and we’re continuing to work on making them better,”
Why the India launch is significant
India gives Meta AI a large audience across several daily-use apps at once. Instead of asking people to download a separate chatbot product, Meta is putting the assistant into platforms where users already communicate, browse content and search.
The timing also places Meta’s rollout close to competing activity in the market. The launch comes a week after Google released its Gemini app for Android users in India with support for nine local languages.
That contrast highlights the central tradeoff in Meta’s launch. Meta AI is now widely available to users in India across major Meta products, but its English-only support leaves a clear boundary around who can use it most naturally today.