Meta officially launched its Meta AI personal assistant in Israel on Tuesday, powered by the advanced Muse Spark reasoning model. Israelis can now interact with the AI in natural Hebrew through Meta’s dedicated platform, the company’s website, and most significantly, directly within WhatsApp. The move marks a new phase in the company’s effort to establish a “personal superintelligence” for users.
The service is available to iOS and Android users and allows them to chat with the assistant, generate images from text descriptions, and use multimodal capabilities. Users can share images and get real-time responses, turning Meta AI into a central work and leisure tool. The company notes this is part of a rolling launch, so the new assistant’s logo will gradually appear for all users in Israel over the coming days.
Visual Analysis and Content Creation
The new capabilities let Israelis handle complex tasks without switching between apps. Meta AI can answer questions about visual objects—like identifying fridge contents to suggest recipes or analyzing screenshots from conversations. The system also lets users edit existing images, create new versions, and design original graphic elements like album covers or custom collages.
The model behind the assistant, Muse Spark, was designed to be exceptionally fast and capable of tackling complex scientific and mathematical questions. Unlike competitors that rely primarily on scanning web links, Meta’s answers draw on trend analysis and content from across the social networks Instagram, Facebook, and Threads. The company claims it’s the only AI tool operating within active creator communities and content platforms.
Privacy Questions and Late Market Entry
Despite the excitement, the Israeli launch comes with a notable two-month delay compared to the rest of the world. Meta faces a local market where ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini already hold significant share. The fact that the service relies on community recommendations from social networks could be an advantage for some users, but also raises concerns about information accuracy and the reliability of sources the model uses to generate answers.
Still, privacy remains at the center of public debate. Meta’s tendency to penetrate every area of digital life to refine its advertising mechanisms may cause many users to avoid attaching the personal assistant to their private WhatsApp conversations. Additionally, the system allows connection to external apps like Gmail and Outlook—a move that enhances coordination and management capabilities but simultaneously expands the tech giant’s access to sensitive personal data.
Notably, the announcement comes just one day after Meta announced it’s moving to usernames in WhatsApp instead of phone numbers, a move that completes the app’s rebranding as a full social platform. For those using Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, the new assistant will offer a significant upgrade to the wearable device’s capabilities. Now it remains to be seen whether the high accessibility within WhatsApp will be enough to dislodge the veteran players from the top.