Meta has officially launched and expands its AI chatbot in Europe after nearly a year-long delay prompted by privacy and regulatory concerns. Starting this week, users across 41 European countries and 21 overseas territories will gain access to Meta AI through WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. However, for now, the assistant will be limited to text-based interactions.
Initially introduced in the United States in 2023, Meta AI’s European expansion was put on hold after Ireland’s Data Protection Commission (DPC) requested that Meta delay training on user-generated content from Facebook and Instagram. The company also faced regulatory challenges in rolling out its multimodal Llama AI model in the EU. As a result, the current version of Meta AI in Europe does not support image generation, editing, or answering questions related to photos.
A Privacy-Conscious Approach
Unlike its US counterpart, the European version of Meta AI has been developed with stricter privacy measures. Meta verifies that this AI model has not been trained on user data from the EU. The company has engaged extensively with European regulators to ensure compliance with data protection laws, particularly the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
Ellie Heatrick, a spokesperson for Meta, stated, “This launch follows almost a year of intensive engagement with various European regulators, and for now, we are only offering a text-only model in the region which wasn’t trained on first-party data from users in the EU.” She further emphasized that Meta will continue collaborating with regulatory bodies to ensure that European users can eventually access AI features similar to those available in other regions.
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Current Features and Future Prospects
At present, Meta AI expands to Europe can help users in brainstorming ideas, planning trips, and answering specific questions by retrieving information from the web. Moreover, it can improve Instagram feeds by surfacing relevant content. However, users will not be able to generate or edit images, nor interact with the chatbot regarding photos.
Apart from these limitations, Meta is actively working on bringing more advanced AI capabilities to European users. The company focuses on achieving feature parity with the US version of Meta AI over time. Last year, Meta introduced select AI functionalities in its Ray-Ban smart glasses for European customers, although multimodal features such as asking the AI about visible objects are still not available in the region.
Challenges and Competition in the AI Space
Meta’s delayed expansion into Europe reflects the growing regulatory investigation faced by tech companies deploying AI models globally. The European Union has been at the forefront of AI regulation, recently introducing the AI Act, which establishes strict guidelines for AI development and deployment. Companies like Google and OpenAI have also had to navigate similar legal landscapes when rolling out AI-driven features in Europe.
As Meta constantly refines its AI services in the region, it faces competition from other AI chatbot providers such as ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Microsoft’s Copilot. Each of these companies is also working to balance creativity with compliance as they expand AI accessibility in European markets.
While Meta AI’s European debut is currently limited in scope, its expansion signifies a big step toward broader AI integration in the region. The company’s ongoing partnership with regulators suggests that more advanced capabilities could be introduced in the near future, bringing European users closer to the full Meta AI experience available elsewhere in the world.
