May 1, 2025 • 8 mins
TECHTALK w/ Marc Saltzman: What is Meta AI? App launches, rivaling ChatGPT / Visa Gives AI Agents ‘Intelligent Commerce’ Superpowers.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's time for it's time for tech talk. The machines
(00:03):
are getting smarter.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
This is tech talk.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I will just say.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
We look, Secretary of State is a full job.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Your plate is full.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Oh yeah, you don't have time to be interim director
of the National Security Agency.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
You'll see, okay. Mark Saltzman joins us.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
We talk things technology, and we've talked many, many times,
lots and lots of segments about artificial intelligence. And Meta
has launched its standalone AI app that's out there that's
supposed to be sort of a rival to chat GPT.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Yeah, it's available now for iPhone and Android. There's a
web version as well, but the smartphone version allows you
to converse with it very naturally. You sign in with
your Instagram or Facebook info.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
You know.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
It's a similar experience actually to being able to access
the Meta AI within Instagram.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
And you may have already seen.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
This or WhatsApp or Facebook if you dig a little deep.
But this is a standalone app, and the idea is that, yeah,
you can converse with it. It sounds very human and
like other large language models as it's called, you can
ask it to generate ideas. You could say, hey, I'm
having ten people over for a dinner party this Friday.
Three are vegetarian, three are going to be kids, and
(01:27):
you know six are is my math off for our carnivores.
What can I make or cocktail ideas, create images, create videos,
create itineraries for trips. But what's unique, I would argue
is it's twofold. One is that there's a new discover
section that shows what your friends on Instagram and Facebook
have asked Meta Ai to do, and then you can
(01:50):
remix that. Like if you have a friend that said
show me, you know a picture of Gary and Shannon
on the moon, I don't know holding an American flat,
then you can take that and then tweak it some more,
or take a recipe that one of your friends asked
it to create and then remix that. So that's kind
of neat if with consent, you can opt to share
(02:13):
what you're leveraging AI for with your friends on Facebook
and Instagram through the Meta ai app. And then the
other thing that makes it unique is that you're allowing
the AI to comb through your social feed to get
to better know you. So when I downloaded Meta AI
and I installed it, it said, so, Mark, I see you
like music and you like festivals, music festivals. I see
(02:34):
you were recently, you know, on a trip in Italy, Like,
what did you like most about your trip? So it
tries to get to know you in order to curate
more personalized results. It's not for everyone. Some people may
think it's creepy, but you know, AI is definitely here
to stay. I know a lot of your listeners are
probably rolling their eyes because they're sick of hearing about it.
But over a billion people have already tried the meta
(02:57):
AI features baked into Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and so
the company Meta thinks that a standalone AI Meta AI
by itself could be a really big player, and it's free.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Did they get some pushback? Did metiget pushback? I realize.
I recognize that if you search for something on Instagram,
for example, the search bar is it says either ask
meta AI or search And I've always been I've always
thought that that's kind of a dangerous thing to combine
the two of them.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, it's not unlike Google.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
I don't know when's the last time you Googled something,
but if you ask a question, chances are Google Gemini
is going to kick in. There is a way to
go into the settings and separate this.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
I first when Google did this, I said I hate this.
I'm never clicking on this, and then the next day
I loved it. And now I soak up all the
AI responses. I find them to be well, well curated, yeah,
well curated yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
For the user. But if you run a website.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Let's say I don't know, garn Channon, you guys have
a digital magazine, then you publish content. If Google and
Meta and other players are extracting your content and then
delivering the answers to someone who's asking a question, they're
not going to land on your website, and so that's
going to hurt your traffic, which could hurt your ad sales.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
So there is a domino effect here.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
You got to look at it kind of holistically as
a consumer, as a user.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I think it's pretty wild. But there's one thing AI.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Hasn't been able to do, and this is I think
a good segue into the second part of our chat today.
Something I was that I was in San Francisco yesterday
at a Visa event and it's called Product Drop, and
they unveiled something called Visa Intelligent Commerce as the name
suggests your AI in the near future could actually transact
(04:48):
for you with consent, of course, so the idea is this,
right now, let's just stick with that itinerary example from earlier.
You want to go to Miami for three days, you
can ask like chat ept to create a three day
i itinerary for you, even recommend hotels and restaurants and
flights and excursions, but it'll stop short from paying for
(05:08):
them for you, right Like it'll say if you ask
it to, okay, buy that hotel room that's perfect, it'll say, sorry,
I can't do that, and it'll send you to some
websites where you can do it. But what Visa and
other players are working on is the ability with consent
and partners like open Ai who owns chat ept and others,
(05:29):
to actually pull the trigger for you on those purchases.
But it'll first send it to you to say is
does this look good? And then you just give it
a one time yeah, like you give it a once over.
So that's going to save a lot of time. I
think that's going to save people a lot of time.
And if you're willing to trust Visa, I mean, look,
they've had what they've been around sixty years. They've processed
(05:49):
over almost three and a half trillion transactions over the
past quarter century alone. You know, if you're going to
trust a company to do it, that's the company need
to do it. So yeah, there's I think it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, it could save time, but I mean there's got
to be a someone's going to do the psychological study
of it. Could cost more money because you believe the
computer's doing it in your best interest or the computer's
got your best choices, you know, based on whatever algorithm
it's going to be using, and therefore you would be
more free with the money. You say, Okay, they must
(06:25):
know what they're talking about, and I must like this
product or whatever that is that they're going to get me.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, I hear what you're saying. Gary.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
There's obviously an element of trust here, and that's a
hurdle that many any company that's going to do what's
called agentic or agent based commerce is going to have
to wrestle with.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
But it's going to send you a push to say
does this look good to you?
Speaker 4 (06:47):
And so you it's if you didn't have that safeguard
in there, then I would agree, Yeah, this can be
a little bit of a slippery slope. But is it
like tapping? Do you find you're spending more money because
you can now tap your credit card rather then insert
it and put in a pin? Are you do you
do you find I'm just I'm just curious. Do you
find your spending more because it's just so easy now
(07:08):
to use your visa at retail by tapping or your
watch or your phone.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
You think it's translating to me spending more? It is
definitely easier and quicker.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
Right, And that's the idea, is that you want something
convenient and with AI being like your assistant, like now
being able to or soon within a couple of months,
they're telling me be able to transact for you, and
again you're still going to have to aokay it. I
think that's a great time saver for me. I love
that idea. I'm busy. If you set those thresholds ahead
(07:39):
of time, Like I want to stay in the hotel,
but I don't want to spend more than four hundred
to night, and I like that flight, but I don't
want to stop over or a red eye. If you
set those parameters in advance, and an AI can get
to know you and remember things. Then I think it's
just going to help us be a lot more efficient
personally and professionally, So I'm all in on that.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
But yeah, there'll be other players as well.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
But you know, Visa was first out of the gate
yesterday at this event, this product drop showcase, which was
pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, and then everybody's gotta you know now that the
ones that come second have to try to find some
way to improve upon what they what Visa has done.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
All right, Mark, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Appreciate it me too. Cheers, guys, cheers.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Make sure you follow Mark on x M A r
C Underscore Saltsman with a Z's got some great stuff
up there, and you can also check out the tech
it Out podcast on the iHeart app.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
You are
It's time for it's time for tech talk. The machines
(00:03):
are getting smarter.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
This is tech talk.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I will just say.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
We look, Secretary of State is a full job.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Your plate is full.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Oh yeah, you don't have time to be interim director
of the National Security Agency.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
You'll see, okay. Mark Saltzman joins us.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
We talk things technology, and we've talked many, many times,
lots and lots of segments about artificial intelligence. And Meta
has launched its standalone AI app that's out there that's
supposed to be sort of a rival to chat GPT.
Speaker 4 (00:43):
Yeah, it's available now for iPhone and Android. There's a
web version as well, but the smartphone version allows you
to converse with it very naturally. You sign in with
your Instagram or Facebook info.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
You know.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
It's a similar experience actually to being able to access
the Meta AI within Instagram.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
And you may have already seen.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
This or WhatsApp or Facebook if you dig a little deep.
But this is a standalone app, and the idea is that, yeah,
you can converse with it. It sounds very human and
like other large language models as it's called, you can
ask it to generate ideas. You could say, hey, I'm
having ten people over for a dinner party this Friday.
Three are vegetarian, three are going to be kids, and
(01:27):
you know six are is my math off for our carnivores.
What can I make or cocktail ideas, create images, create videos,
create itineraries for trips. But what's unique, I would argue
is it's twofold. One is that there's a new discover
section that shows what your friends on Instagram and Facebook
have asked Meta Ai to do, and then you can
(01:50):
remix that. Like if you have a friend that said
show me, you know a picture of Gary and Shannon
on the moon, I don't know holding an American flat,
then you can take that and then tweak it some more,
or take a recipe that one of your friends asked
it to create and then remix that. So that's kind
of neat if with consent, you can opt to share
(02:13):
what you're leveraging AI for with your friends on Facebook
and Instagram through the Meta ai app. And then the
other thing that makes it unique is that you're allowing
the AI to comb through your social feed to get
to better know you. So when I downloaded Meta AI
and I installed it, it said, so, Mark, I see you
like music and you like festivals, music festivals. I see
(02:34):
you were recently, you know, on a trip in Italy, Like,
what did you like most about your trip? So it
tries to get to know you in order to curate
more personalized results. It's not for everyone. Some people may
think it's creepy, but you know, AI is definitely here
to stay. I know a lot of your listeners are
probably rolling their eyes because they're sick of hearing about it.
But over a billion people have already tried the meta
(02:57):
AI features baked into Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and so
the company Meta thinks that a standalone AI Meta AI
by itself could be a really big player, and it's free.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Did they get some pushback? Did metiget pushback? I realize.
I recognize that if you search for something on Instagram,
for example, the search bar is it says either ask
meta AI or search And I've always been I've always
thought that that's kind of a dangerous thing to combine
the two of them.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
Yeah, it's not unlike Google.
Speaker 4 (03:30):
I don't know when's the last time you Googled something,
but if you ask a question, chances are Google Gemini
is going to kick in. There is a way to
go into the settings and separate this.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
I first when Google did this, I said I hate this.
I'm never clicking on this, and then the next day
I loved it. And now I soak up all the
AI responses. I find them to be well, well curated, yeah,
well curated yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
For the user. But if you run a website.
Speaker 4 (04:01):
Let's say I don't know, garn Channon, you guys have
a digital magazine, then you publish content. If Google and
Meta and other players are extracting your content and then
delivering the answers to someone who's asking a question, they're
not going to land on your website, and so that's
going to hurt your traffic, which could hurt your ad sales.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
So there is a domino effect here.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
You got to look at it kind of holistically as
a consumer, as a user.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
I think it's pretty wild. But there's one thing AI.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Hasn't been able to do, and this is I think
a good segue into the second part of our chat today.
Something I was that I was in San Francisco yesterday
at a Visa event and it's called Product Drop, and
they unveiled something called Visa Intelligent Commerce as the name
suggests your AI in the near future could actually transact
(04:48):
for you with consent, of course, so the idea is this,
right now, let's just stick with that itinerary example from earlier.
You want to go to Miami for three days, you
can ask like chat ept to create a three day
i itinerary for you, even recommend hotels and restaurants and
flights and excursions, but it'll stop short from paying for
(05:08):
them for you, right Like it'll say if you ask
it to, okay, buy that hotel room that's perfect, it'll say, sorry,
I can't do that, and it'll send you to some
websites where you can do it. But what Visa and
other players are working on is the ability with consent
and partners like open Ai who owns chat ept and others,
(05:29):
to actually pull the trigger for you on those purchases.
But it'll first send it to you to say is
does this look good? And then you just give it
a one time yeah, like you give it a once over.
So that's going to save a lot of time. I
think that's going to save people a lot of time.
And if you're willing to trust Visa, I mean, look,
they've had what they've been around sixty years. They've processed
(05:49):
over almost three and a half trillion transactions over the
past quarter century alone. You know, if you're going to
trust a company to do it, that's the company need
to do it. So yeah, there's I think it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Yeah, it could save time, but I mean there's got
to be a someone's going to do the psychological study
of it. Could cost more money because you believe the
computer's doing it in your best interest or the computer's
got your best choices, you know, based on whatever algorithm
it's going to be using, and therefore you would be
more free with the money. You say, Okay, they must
(06:25):
know what they're talking about, and I must like this
product or whatever that is that they're going to get me.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, I hear what you're saying. Gary.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
There's obviously an element of trust here, and that's a
hurdle that many any company that's going to do what's
called agentic or agent based commerce is going to have
to wrestle with.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
But it's going to send you a push to say
does this look good to you?
Speaker 4 (06:47):
And so you it's if you didn't have that safeguard
in there, then I would agree, Yeah, this can be
a little bit of a slippery slope. But is it
like tapping? Do you find you're spending more money because
you can now tap your credit card rather then insert
it and put in a pin? Are you do you
do you find I'm just I'm just curious. Do you
find your spending more because it's just so easy now
(07:08):
to use your visa at retail by tapping or your
watch or your phone.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
You think it's translating to me spending more? It is
definitely easier and quicker.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
Right, And that's the idea, is that you want something
convenient and with AI being like your assistant, like now
being able to or soon within a couple of months,
they're telling me be able to transact for you, and
again you're still going to have to aokay it. I
think that's a great time saver for me. I love
that idea. I'm busy. If you set those thresholds ahead
(07:39):
of time, Like I want to stay in the hotel,
but I don't want to spend more than four hundred
to night, and I like that flight, but I don't
want to stop over or a red eye. If you
set those parameters in advance, and an AI can get
to know you and remember things. Then I think it's
just going to help us be a lot more efficient
personally and professionally, So I'm all in on that.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
But yeah, there'll be other players as well.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
But you know, Visa was first out of the gate
yesterday at this event, this product drop showcase, which was
pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (08:05):
Yeah, and then everybody's gotta you know now that the
ones that come second have to try to find some
way to improve upon what they what Visa has done.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
All right, Mark, thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Appreciate it me too. Cheers, guys, cheers.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Make sure you follow Mark on x M A r
C Underscore Saltsman with a Z's got some great stuff
up there, and you can also check out the tech
it Out podcast on the iHeart app.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
You are
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