Meta tests Pocket app for creating AI-made interactive posts
The new social app lets users generate and share “gizmos,” extending Meta’s push to make AI a bigger part of social media.
By Hana Yoshida · Markets Reporter
2 min read
Meta has launched a social app called Pocket that lets people create and share small interactive experiences using AI prompts, Business Insider reported. The app points to Meta’s effort to turn generative AI into something users make, remix and browse inside social feeds.
The product centers on what Meta calls “gizmos.” In a Google Play description cited by The Verge, Meta says users can scroll through gizmos posted by people around the world, and that the creations can react to touch, phone movement, sound, music, camera input and photos from a device’s camera roll.
Meta’s help center describes a gizmo as a “playable AI-generated experience,” according to The Verge. The company also says users who publish a gizmo can decide whether to allow others to remix it.
A social app built around AI creations
Pocket appears to fit a broader idea previously laid out by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has pushed AI as a central part of the company’s social products, The Verge reported. Zuckerberg has described a future in which users build interactive AI experiences and distribute them to other people.
Business Insider reported that Pocket follows Meta’s hiring of engineers from Atma Sciences Inc., the company behind an app called Gizmo. Meta also obtained a non-exclusive license to use Atma Sciences’ technology, according to The Verge.
Based on screenshots from Pocket’s Google Play listing, The Verge reported that Meta’s new app appears similar to Gizmo. The Google Play package name cited by The Verge also includes “gizmo,” tying the new Meta app closely to that earlier project.
Availability remains limited
Pocket does not appear to be broadly available yet. The Verge reported that two staffers in the United States saw a notice on Google Play saying the app was not available in their country.
The Verge also reported that it could not find Pocket in Apple’s U.S. App Store. Meta’s help center says the app is “not yet available everywhere,” according to The Verge.
Meta did not immediately respond to The Verge’s request for comment on the app. The company has not publicly detailed where Pocket is available, when it might expand to more countries or whether it will be released on iOS in the United States.
The launch gives Meta another test bed for AI-generated social content, alongside its larger push to build AI into apps and services used by billions of people. For now, Pocket appears to be a limited release aimed at seeing how users respond to creating and sharing lightweight AI-made interactive posts.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.