If Meta's AI search engine is happening, Facebook & Instagram's AI won't rely on Bing & Google anymore

Meta is reportedly building its own AI search engine. Sources over at The Information have learned that the Facebook parent company wants to reduce its reliance on Bing and Google anymore when Meta AI runs a web search on its platforms.

Months ago, Meta introduced new web crawling bots, the Meta-ExternalAgent and Meta-ExternalFetcher, which are designed to collect data for AI training and improve product offerings. These bots can potentially circumvent the robots.txt protocol, a long-standing method used by website owners to block automated scraping of their content.

The report further mentions that Meta has been working for at least “eight months” to build the chatbot’s database information.

Meta AI is the AI-powered chatbot that’s now available across Meta’s platforms, like Facebook and Instagram. Launched last year, Meta AI offers real-time info during text chats powered by Bing and does image generation.

OpenAI has also been at the forefront of the AI search engine conversation, so the arrival of Meta’s own could challenge the market. The Microsoft-backed company launched SearchGPT this summer and said this month that it’s integrating the search engine into the chatbot by the end of the year.

Apple, on the other hand, is also considering launching its own search engine to replace Google, using its existing search technology and potential ad revenue. But, it’s not that simple, especially since a court ruling ended Google’s annual $20 billion payment to remain the default search provider on iPhones.