Meta Expands Voice-Powered AI with Llama 4

Meta Platforms Inc, the social media giant behind Facebook, is ramping up its efforts in the voice-powered AI space.

According to the Financial Times, Meta is planning to introduce improved voice features in its latest version of Llama AI, called Llama 4. The company believes that the future of AI-powered agents will be conversational, rather than text-based.

Meta has been investing heavily in AI over the past two years, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg announcing plans to spend up to $65 billion in 2025 to bolster its AI offerings. The company is looking to expand its AI capabilities beyond social media platforms and is considering trialing premium subscriptions for its AI assistant, Meta AI, for agentic purposes such as booking reservations and video creation.

Meta’s push into voice-powered AI comes as it competes with other tech giants in the industry, including OpenAI, Microsoft, and Google. These companies are all racing to commercialize AI technology and generate revenue from it. Meta is also exploring the possibility of introducing paid advertising or sponsored posts into the search results of its AI assistant.

The voice capabilities of Meta’s AI have been a focus for the company, with plans to make the conversation between the user and the AI model more natural and two-way. Meta wants users to be able to interrupt the AI model and have a more fluid dialogue, rather than a rigid question and answer format.

Meta’s chief product officer, Chris Cox, described the upcoming Llama 4 as an “omni model” that allows for native speech rather than translating voice into text. He believes that the ability to talk to the internet and ask it anything is a powerful feature that is still being fully realized.

Meta has also been discussing the guardrails for its AI models, including the newest Llama model. The company is considering whether to lower the restrictions on what the AI model can output.

Meta’s push into voice-powered AI aligns with its broader strategy of building lightweight headsets, such as its Ray Bans smart glasses, that can replace smartphones as consumers’ main computing devices. The company sees voice interaction as a major feature of these devices.

As PYMNTS reported recently, Clara Shih, Meta’s head of business AI, hopes to offer agentic AI to “hundreds of millions” of businesses.

“We’re quickly coming to a place where every business, from the very large to the very small, they’re going to have a business agent representing it and acting on its behalf, in its voice — the way that businesses today have websites and email addresses.”

Shih wants to become more accessible for small businesses that currently rely on a Facebook page or website as their primary way to attract and engage with customers.

“Very soon, each of those businesses are going to have these AIs that can represent them and help automate redundant tasks, help speak in their voice, help them find more customers and provide almost like a concierge service to every single one of their customers, 24/7.”

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