Threads users can now chat with Meta AI in their DMs
TechCrunch Aisha Malik ● Covered by 6 sources
Meta AI now lives in Threads DMs, so you can privately chat with it about posts, links, or videos. It's Meta's latest move to keep you from ever opening ChatGPT.
Based on reporting by TechCrunch, Aisha Malik — read the original for the full story.
Summary, retelling and take written by AI under human oversight; images are AI-generated illustrations. How we work · Report an error
Meta just made it a little easier to never leave its apps. Starting Monday, Threads users worldwide can slide into a private DM with Meta AI, sharing posts, images, links, and videos and asking the bot follow-up questions right there in the chat window. It's a quiet rollout, but the intent behind it is anything but subtle.
This isn't Meta AI's first appearance on Threads. The company had already been testing public replies from the bot in select markets, echoing what Grok does on X. But putting the assistant into DMs changes the dynamic entirely — instead of an AI reply showing up uninvited in your feed, you're the one initiating a private conversation, more akin to how people already use Meta AI inside WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook.
The strategic logic is straightforward. Meta wants every question you might otherwise type into ChatGPT or Gemini answered without you ever tapping away from Threads. Keep people scrolling, chatting, and searching inside one app, and you keep their attention, their data, and eventually their ad dollars. Given how aggressively OpenAI and Google have been pushing their own assistants into browsers and phones this year, Meta clearly isn't willing to cede that ground on its own turf.
For now, the public-feed version of Meta AI remains limited to a handful of markets, and Meta says it's still gathering feedback before deciding whether to expand it. Users who'd rather not see the bot popping up on their posts can mute the @meta.ai account, tap
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
Meta cramming its chatbot into every DM box isn't really about helping you — it's a retention play dressed up as convenience, and a pretty transparent one at that. If Threads had a genuinely compelling reason to exist beyond copying X, it wouldn't need an AI bolted onto every corner of the app to keep people around.
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