The big news of this morning and we’ll certainly be of the week is the rumors of a Facebook AI assistant. Jane Munchung Won, known for reverse engineering apps and uncovering features, reverse engineered the latest update of the Facebook app on Android and uncovered a feature called Aloha that she showed in a video where you can see a bar that seems to be capturing speech. If this is news, wait to hear the rest, she also uncovered what appears to be a voice messaging feature in the Instagram app, even if feature seems not to be functional.

Facebook rumors of a smart display has been rolling out in 2018

This is not the first time that Facebook is in the news for voice, there are reports that Aloha should have been released in July, and we know that didn’t happen. What we don’t know is if they are going to work on only the assistant for Messenger and Instagram or if they will release a smart display device. But if they do, it means users now will have at least in the US 4 devices to choose from: Amazon’s, Google’s, Samsung’s and Facebook’s. Both Messenger and Instagram command together an audience of almost 2 billion users. It would make sense for Facebook to have voice in those apps instead of a new device, and they have taken this strategy before when they didn’t launched a smartphone. In this case, only time will tell.

Voice messaging fits Facebook mission perfectly

Voice messaging fits Facebook mission perfectly of connecting the world, what is more connecting than voice? It seems we are going to have an interesting fall season with voice news.

What do guys think? Hit us a comment on Twitter @voicefirstlabs or Instagram @voicefirstweekly and let’s start a conversation. This episode transcript is at voicefirstweekly.com/flashbriefing/68 along with a link to the video we mentioned.

Thank you for listening!