Local Memo: Is Meta Building an AI Search Engine?

In this week’s update, read about Meta’s new AI search engine; Google’s AI agent for Chrome; the demise of Foursquare; and unwanted booking buttons in Google healthcare profiles.

Is Meta Building an AI Search Engine?

The News

The Information is reporting that Meta has been working on a search engine for several months, crawling and indexing the web in order to provide answers for Meta AI. The purpose of the search engine, according to internal Meta sources, is to gather up-to-date information about current events and other topics so that Meta AI can answer a broader range of questions posed by users. Meta AI is currently available to the company’s 4 billion global users on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. 

For some time, Meta has relied on integrations with Google and Bing to provide search engine capabilities in its platforms. As these and other search engines move to add AI features to their interfaces, Meta in parallel is adding search functionality to augment the abilities of its conversational chatbot tool. Meta has also made a deal with Reuters to pipe news content directly into the platform. 

There’s not much detail thus far about when search data powered by Meta might make an appearance in the public version of Meta AI.

Courtesy Meta/CNET

Why This Matters

Apple has been rumored for years to be working on its own search engine, and OpenAI recently launched the experimental SearchGPT platform; so it was likely just a matter of time before Meta AI developed search functionality of its own. The move on Meta’s part addresses what is really the Achilles’ heel of large language models: they are trained on large but static datasets and therefore can’t provide the kinds of up-to-the-minute answers search consumers expect. Meta is also striking out in search at a time when Google’s dominant position is showing signs of erosion, from the encroachment of modern AI platforms to the threat of regulatory actions that might soon open up the market to increased competition. Meta doesn’t want to be left behind in that fight, and with its 4 billion global users will likely prove itself to be, at least, among the top contenders in AI-powered search.

Google Developing AI Agent for Chrome

The News

Google is reportedly working on a special purpose AI agent for the Chrome browser that can book a flight for you, purchase a product, or research a topic. Called Project Jarvis, the AI agent is said to be powered by an updated version of Google’s Gemini AI model and is designed to work within Chrome to automate everyday tasks. The company is rumored to be considering a public demonstration of the functionality in December.

Why This Matters

Microsoft, Apple, OpenAI, and others have already debuted or are reported to be working on agent-type services that perform tasks for users with AI technology. This promises to be a growth area heading into 2025 and could point to the evolution of the browser and search engine from an information retrieval system to a full-service tool that helps users accomplish tasks. So too, chatbots like ChatGPT have made it clear that complex tasks such as writing software code can be accomplished by generative AI, but consumers have yet to make broad use of such capabilities. For local search, the goal might be to allow users not only to use AI to fulfill highly specific needs, but to take the next step and book appointments, send navigation instructions to your car, or communicate directly with a business on your behalf. 

Foursquare App Shuttering Soon

The News

Foursquare is shutting down its namesake app as of December 15. Rebranded Foursquare City Guide several years ago, the app is actually one of two that the company split off from the original Foursquare check-in app, which debuted to great fanfare at SXSW in 2009. The other app, focused on check-ins, is called Swarm and will continue to be available. Foursquare City Guide had been focused on providing local search tools, business profiles, and local recommendations. 

Why This Matters

Those of us with long memories will know that Foursquare’s check-in app was once a hot property in the local space. Now that its relatively short lifespan is coming to an end, we have cause to reflect on the consolidation that has occurred in local in recent years, leading to the sustaining popularity of just a few apps and platforms like Google, Apple Maps, Yelp, and Bing. There were dozens of local apps at the time Foursquare launched; now the barrier to entry for upstarts is quite high, making it likely that platforms with a broad influence starting elsewhere, such as TikTok or OpenAI, will be the real disruptors in local in the coming years. 

Unwanted Reservation Buttons in Google Healthcare Profiles

The News

Mike Blumenthal tells us that “Book Online” buttons, not authorized or enabled by the business, are showing up on Google profiles in the healthcare sector. The booking buttons allow users to make appointments with the healthcare provider via a third party service such as Clinic Trackers or ZocDoc. When a business owner contacted Clinic Trackers, the company said it was a Reserve with Google partner who was providing a free service designed to help healthcare businesses generate more leads. Supposedly, the act of booking an appointment generates a communication to the business; however, healthcare businesses worry that unwanted services not affiliated with a practice will confuse or mislead patients.

Courtesy Mike Blumenthal

Why This Matters

In the past, Google was known for populating restaurant profiles with third-party ordering buttons not authorized by the business, eventually giving restaurants a means to remove them. For now, the only way a healthcare provider can remove unwanted booking buttons is by reaching out directly to the Reserve with Google partner. Given that Google is apparently rolling out action buttons in this manner, healthcare businesses (and others) should be on the lookout.