Meta is prepping a standalone Meta AI app

Meta is reportedly gearing up to launch a standalone Meta AI app as soon as the second quarter, according to CNBC, directly taking on OpenAI’s ChatGPT in the race for mobile dominance.

While Meta AI currently lives inside the search bars of WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger, an independent app would turn the digital assistant into a full-fledged productivity tool.

Zuckerberg has made his ambition loud and clear. During an earnings call in January, he stated his goal of making Meta AI the leading assistant reaching over 1 billion people this year. But to get there, Meta needs deeper engagement than casual social media searches.

Moving out of the search bar

Meta CFO Susan Li reported that Meta AI hit roughly 700 million monthly active users in January, up from 600 million in December. WhatsApp drives the heaviest traffic, followed by Facebook feed deep-dives, with India standing as its largest single market.

Yet, analysts have long questioned the depth of that engagement. Data firm Business of Apps estimated that the Meta AI standalone web interface draws fewer than 10 million monthly visits—trailing not just ChatGPT and Google Gemini, but even mid-tier players like Anthropic.

In January, Zuckerberg signaled this strategy shift on Threads. A user argued that a dedicated mobile app would unify user history across smartphones and hardware like the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses while unlocking deeper personalization. Zuckerberg replied with a single "100" emoji.

Meta is also preparing to test a paid subscription model for advanced tiers, mirroring the $20 monthly tiers of ChatGPT Plus and Copilot.

Shortly after the scoop broke, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman quipped on X: "ok fine maybe we’ll do a social app."

The race to unbundle

Meta is not alone in unbundling its AI. Google launched a dedicated Gemini app for iOS in November, and just last week cut off Gemini access inside the main Google app to force downloads. Elon Musk's xAI rolled out a Grok iOS app in January, pulling the bot beyond the X social feed.

According to Sensor Tower, ChatGPT remains the most downloaded generative AI chatbot worldwide, followed by Gemini, ByteDance's Doubao, and Microsoft Copilot.

To bridge the gap, Zuckerberg is turning up the heat internally. Employees working on generative AI report intense pressure, with some working seven days a week to deliver on the aggressive roadmap.

Why it matters

Cramming an assistant into a social media search bar was a brilliant growth hack to claim 700 million users, but it created an illusion of engagement. Nobody writes complex code or drafts dense legal briefs in a WhatsApp search field.

A dedicated app gives Meta AI a real shot at serious productivity workflows. It also creates a clean hub to sync context between smartphones and Ray-Ban smart glasses, which look like Meta's most promising hardware Trojan horse in years.

More importantly, monetization requires separation. Charging a monthly subscription inside a free social feed is a tough sell, but charging for a dedicated pro work tool is standard practice. The real test is whether everyday users will actually download another app when they already have ChatGPT installed.