Meta is introducing a virtual assistant today to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT that can serve up answers to questions from Microsoft's Bing search engine and generate images from text commands. Meta AI, as the assistant is called, is powered by the company's large language model Llama 2. As well as chatting it can generate images, using a new image generator named Emu that Meta trained on 1.1 billion pairs of photos and text, including photos and captions shared on Facebook or Instagram. The new assistant will be available today for a limited group of US users on Facebook Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It can be added to group chats and help out with tasks such as making travel plans. The assistant will also be available via voice using new smart glasses Meta will release next month for US users.