Meta AI vs ChatGPT is the latest in our AI comparison series. Through these tests, I aim to provide a transparent and practical perspective on the popular AI models and chatbots available on the market.
The new Llama 3.1-powered AI model has shown promising results during the evaluation tests conducted by Meta AI. Since its integration into popular Meta social media apps, it has gained immense popularity among existing users.
But is it good enough? Or is it a miss by Meta? Stick through the entire comparison to find out an unexpected result.
Comparing Meta AI vs ChatGPT
When Meta AI and ChatGPT are compared side-to-side, many unrevealed insights come to the surface. Like it needs to be used for free, Meta AI is a much better choice than ChatGPT. Here’s more of it:
| Parameters Compared | Meta AI | ChatGPT |
|---|---|---|
| Released date | April, 2024 | November, 2022 |
| Training Data Size | 15 trillion tokens | Not disclosed |
| Multimodal capabilities | ✅ | ✅ |
| Weekly active users | 185 million | 200 Million |
| Interface | 4.7 | 4.7 |
| Language Model Evaluation | 4.7 | 4.8 |
| AI image generation | 4.5 | 4.8 |
| Usability | 4.9 | 4.7 |
| Free Access | 4.8 | 4.7 |
| Real-time information accuracy | 4.7 | 4.7 |
| Add-on compatibility | 4.5 | 4.9 |
| Privacy and Data Security | 4.2 | 4.6 |
Before branching out this research further, let’s check out the basic introduction of Meta AI and ChatGPT both.
Meta AI Overview
Launched in April 2024, Meta released its own AI based on the Llama AI model. This model quickly caught the attention of enthusiasts, as it teased that it could be seamlessly integrated into Meta’s suite of apps.
Fast forward to today, about 40 million people use Meta daily, all thanks to its ability to be used directly on the web, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. What sets this AI chatbot apart is its availability of users across these platforms.
That, combined with the free access, has enabled Meta AI to catch up so early with the number of active users.
ChatGPT Overview
ChatGPT, launched in 2022, has been a sensation and a super-hot tech. It broke the record of being the fastest platform to reach 100 million users. It started a wave that many corporations soon followed, including Meta AI.
With the constant updates and improvements, ChatGPT is at a level where it can converse with the user almost in human-like timing, generate high-quality AI images, understand code, and take images, links, voice, and even files as a prompt.
Demandsage Bonus: Read this guide to know the journey of the ChatGPT chatbot.
The glimpse shown about Meta AI and ChatGPT is only about to get interesting. The way that both platforms look and feel similar raises further curiosity about the exact major differences between them.
Meta AI vs ChatGPT – 7 Major Differences
Choosing a side is difficult, but when I compared the two with the parameters below, I could connect some dots and started to see how this comparison could be concluded.
Let me explain how ChatGPT is still a better AI than Meta AI and ChatGPT.
1. Interface
AI chat assistants have a classic, minimalistic interface. The interface has a side window pane for displaying chat history and a main frame for inserting prompts, getting answers, and interacting with the bot.
Meta AI and ChatGPT also follow the same path and share an almost identical interface:
Meta AI Interface
Once you log in with your Meta account on either of the available platforms, you can immediately start using Meta AI. The interface will differ depending on the platform you are using the tool on.
As you can see in the image below, the left half shows the interface when used with a web version, and the right side shows the interface of Meta AI when used inside Instagram.
WhatsApp and Facebook also offer user interfaces identical to those of Instagram. I found this accessibility to be really useful rather than a separate app that might get lost in my library.
ChatGPT Interface
ChatGPT’s interface is more minimal than Meta AI’s. Though it does not offer an integrated experience across social media apps, it can be used as a web version and a separate mobile app.
The ChatGPT mobile application is a highlight as it also allows voice chat and interaction features that truly make the experience better. What catches my attention is the haptic feedback.
It truly feels like I am talking to a sci-fi robot of my own.
“The rumble of the haptics on the ChatGPT iOS app tickles my brain the same way mechanical keyboards do.”
The rumble of the haptics on the ChatGPT iOS app tickles my brain the same way mechanical keyboards do
— Pete (@nonmayorpete) May 18, 2023
Verdict: Both Meta AI and ChatGPT offer a similar simple interface, making this round a TIE.
2. Language Model Potential
Next, I compared how powerful these AI models are and how extensively they have been tested. To be honest, both corporations have spoken highly of their language model capabilities, and both their reports are impressive.
Meta AI-Language Model Potential
The new Meta 3.1 Llama is Meta’s most capable AI model yet. This open-source model is believed to benefit developers and Meta equally, as Mark Zuckerberg stated in this letter.
The latest model was tested across 150 benchmark tests across a variety of languages plus some human interactions with the tool. These tests turned out to make Llama 3.1 a leading competitor for industry leaders like – GPT 4o, GPT 4, and Sonnet 3.5.
To read more technical details about the language model’s potential, click this official Meta AI Llama 3.1 announcement post.
ChatGPT Language m=Model Potential
Hailing as the industry standard for a long time, ChatGPT runs on its flagship mode, GPT 4, and other powerful versions of it—GPT 4o and GPT 4o mini (for the free version).
When OpenAI released this model, it not only shared increased token size, data knowledge expansion, and better benchmark tests but also introduced new multi-modal capabilities of the tool.
Check out this release post on the Open AI report on GPT 4o.
Verdict: Judging by the performance results shared by both, Meta AI is really close, but ChatGPT’s GPT4o has a slight advantage here.
3. AI Image Generation
A really fun and useful feature that I love to play around with. Both Meta AI and ChatGPT can generate high-quality AI images by following simple texts as prompts.
In my recent comparison of the 19 best AI image generators, Meta AI and ChatGPT submitted some really powerful image results. Let’s conduct one more test:
Prompt used: “A knight in shining armor is having a tea party with a robot giraffe and a flying toaster, all sitting on a cloud made of cotton candy.”
Meta AI-Generated AI Image
For every prompt inserted for image generation, Meta AI generates 4 variations to choose from, which works better since each individual’s interpretation can be different. The generated image took a faster time to load than ChatGPT and also proved to be more accurate.
Further, it also offers options to edit a specific selected image by sharing text feedback.
A feature that sets Meta AI’s image generation apart is the ability to animate the generated image to about 3 seconds. Check out the animated version of the above-generated image here.
ChatGPT Generated AI image
Following up with the same prompt, ChatGPT uses the most advanced DALL E 3 image generation model, and this shows in its response.
However, ChatGPT only generates 1 image at a time, which limits the variations you could get for the same prompt.
The generated image missed out on making the Giraffe robotic. However, with the easy select and edit feature within the result, I could easily make the edits I wanted without messing up the other elements of the image.
Verdict: The image generated by Meta AI was accurate to the prompt and also shared more variations to the prompt than ChatGPT.
4. Free Access
Like Meta AI, ChatGPT first launched as a free tool but eventually became a subscription-based service for its advanced models. Still, both models offer pretty useful free access.
Meta AI Free Access
Meta AI is currently offering free access to the AI tool across its apps and website. There are no signs or announcements yet that Meta will charge for this model, as it has been stated to be open source.
With free access, users can generate text and images, have conversations, calculate math problems, get travel and gift ideas, and even generate code snippets.
Still, according to Metea AI, there are a few limitations of using the AI in the free mode:
- Image generation limits: 10 images per day, 3 images per prompt
- Text generation limits: 20,000 characters per request, 10 requests per minute
- Token limits: 20,000 tokens per request (about 10,000-15,000 words)
- Rate limits: 10 requests per minute for text generation, 5 requests per minute for image generation
- Content restrictions: No explicit, violent, or copyrighted content
Use case-wise, if using Meta AI inside a group chat, you need to tag @MetaAI first and then share your prompt further to get a response.
ChatGPT Free Access
ChatGPT allows users to use the AI for free even without a login requirement. For its free access, ChatGPT uses a mini version of the ChatGPT Omni model evolving from the GPT 3.5 model.
With a free ChatGPT access that does not even require new users to sign up, you now can – Browse the web, analyze and extract insights from your data, upload images as prompts, attach files, discover and use GPTs, and create images with DALL E 3.
Here are the limitations of using ChatGPT in its free version:
- Access to GPT 4o: ChatGPT free users can only use the GPT4o version for a limited period of time per day.
- AI-image generation: ChatGPT-free users can only generate 2 images per day.
- Building GPTs: A free ChatGPT plan does not allow you to access an exclusive ChatGPT feature to build custom GPTs (plugins).
Verdict: Regarding using the tool for free, ChatGPT offers more features than Meta AI.
5. Real-time Information Accuracy
Regarding the accuracy of real-time information, I conducted a small test in which I asked the two AIs about the current medal tally of the 2024 Paralympic event.
Prompt used:
“What is the current medal tally of the 2024 Paralympic event?”
Let’s first look at the actual figures when asking the question.
Meta AI Real-time Accuracy
Meta AI surprisingly did well in providing the closest accurate information for the prompt. Though the real-time accuracy is not actually real-time accurate, it provided the closes accurate figure:
For the figures, Meta AI referred to a popular sports publication in the country and also linked it as a source below.
ChatGPT Real-time Accuracy
ChatGPT, on the other hand, took some two sources for its information, first the official website and second, Wikipedia.
Though ChatGPT referred to the official website, it did not share the accurate figures that were showing on the website at the time.
Verdict: Meta AI shared more accurate real-time results than ChatGPT and took away the win here.
6. Privacy & Data Security
As we neared the end of our comparison on a crucial matter, I decided to check how safe it is to use Meta AI and ChatGPT. Since, both AI work on user prompts, information sharing, and user feedback, privacy and security concerns loom.
Meta AI Privacy And Security Features
According to the Meta AI privacy center, Meta’s generative AI wing is a type of computer model, not a database or static information-based system. By learning different types of data like images and texts, it only learns to identify patterns and associations.
While your private information is safe, as Meta AI does not directly learn from private messaging, it does learn from openly available posts, likes, and user patterns.
ChatGPT Privacy And Data Security Features
Similar to Meta AI, Open AI aims to provide safe user passage using ChatGPT.
For the new model, GPT4o, they conducted a particular test to evaluate the risks of using the AI model, and the overall risk factor was assessed at medium risk both before and after mitigation efforts.
OpenAI also conducts regular evaluations and updates the scorecards of all other AI models, not just GPT4o.
This allows users to be safe from potential cybersecurity threats and your data security.
Verdict: Both Meta AI and ChatGPT strive to provide users with a safe and secure mode of using their tools.
What Does The Future Hold? Can Meta AI Be Better Than ChatGPT?
Looking ahead, I see Meta AI catching up with ChatGPT pretty quickly. It has already come close to the active users, as seen earlier. The ability to generate AI images, share accurate real-time information, diverse ways to use the tool, and the language model potential metrics show a bright future for Meta AI.
i love summer in the garden pic.twitter.com/Ter5Z5nFMc
— Sam Altman (@sama) August 7, 2024
However, rumors are that OpenAI is set to launch its most potent AI model yet – ‘GPT 5,’ also known as ‘project strawberry.’ Adding more fuel to the fire, Sam Altman posted this cryptic post on X, leaving tech enthusiasts lose their minds and form conspiracy theories. Check out the comments for the post.
With a new upgrade, ChatGPT can leave all of its competition behind to catch up as it has been doing since the day of its launch. Only the future can tell if there’s a new AI model to be launched soon.
Conclusion: Meta AI Beats ChatGPT!
I started off this test assuming ChatGPT to perform exceptionally well as its the one with more experience and more features under its belt. However, Meta AI turned out to be a wildcard sharing some really impressive abilities against the veteran ChatGPT.
One reason is that the ability to use Meta AI inside the most used public apps like Instagram, Whatsapp, and Facebook makes it so much easier than switching to a different app.
However, this picture can soon change with this ever-evolving industry, with new model versions and updates launching almost every second. Until then, Meta AI provides a better experience than ChatGPT!
