• by Colin Kirkland , Yesterday

Meta has begun testing its AI chatbot directly on the Threads feed, offering users a similar experience to X's integration of Grok.

The beta test invites a handful of Threads users across Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Argentina, and Singapore to mention Meta AI within their posts and replies for real-time conversational context with regard to trends, breaking stories and recommendations.

By providing users with AI-generated context about trending events like the Meta Gala, playoffs, the World Cup and more, Threads is attempting to stoke the same excitement surrounding real-time conversations that Twitter popularized globally.

However, initial testing and the @meta.ai account -- visible to all users -- has garnered less-than-ideal responses.

In the reply section located below the account’s announcement post on Threads are a plethora of responses about blocking the chatbot from their feeds, including “We don’t want you here”, “Give us the ability to block you, you cowards!”, “Why can’t I block you?”, and “Either I get to block you or I uninstall this godforsaken app.”

At the time of writing this, Meta AI-blocking issues rates as the top trend on the Threads platform.

Early user distaste of Meta AI on Threads recalls X’s troublesome integration of its Grok chatbot. After becoming available to all X users in 2024, the chatbot began issuing inappropriate, and often antisemitic, responses to user inquiries, even calling itself “MechaHitler.”

While Meta AI has more safeguards in place than Grok, current user responses showcase a widespread distaste for the inclusion of a chatbot on the social messaging platform.