Get ready for another Meta app.
Meta is rolling out Pocket, a new social AI app, Business Insider has learned. Meta describes the Pocket as a platform to “create, share, and discover gizmos with friends.”
The app is listed on Meta’s Help Center and in the Google Play Store. The timeline and rollout regions are unclear. It was not available to download in the US on Thursday. Meta did not respond to a request for comment.
“The Pocket app is not yet available everywhere,” Meta’s Help Center says. “If it is available for you, some features may not yet be available in your area.”
What’s a “gizmo,” you ask?
It’s basically a mini-game you can create by typing out a prompt. In Meta’s words, “a gizmo is an interactive, playable AI-generated experience.”
For instance, you could prompt Pocket to create a gizmo that turns a flower into a paintbrush, letting you draw an image with that flower-brush on the touchscreen.
Meta’s family of apps has grown well beyond Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It has introduced new social apps like Threads and Forum, as well as several new AI apps that build on Meta’s focus on artificial intelligence.
Business Insider exclusively reported in March that Meta had hired the team behind Atma Sciences Inc., which built an app called Gizmo. It also acquired a non-exclusive license to the startup’s tech. Meta declined to disclose the financial details of the deal at the time.
A few months after scooping up the team, Meta appears to be cashing in on the gizmo experience with its new stand-alone app, Pocket.
The app is listed on Google’s Play Store and is pitched as a social feed where users can vibe code their own interactive games or content:
Scroll a feed of gizmos from people around the world. Gizmos respond to your touch and the tilt of your phone. They play sound effects and your favorite songs. They can use your camera or pull in photos from your camera roll. Some can even reason about the world around them.
Alessandro Paluzzi, a developer who reverse-engineers Meta’s apps to reveal internal tests, spotted that Pocket will be promoted within Meta’s apps alongside a growing portfolio that includes Instants (Instagram’s latest Snapchat-like app).
Pocket isn’t the only app trying to build out a social feed around vibe-coded games. Sekai, an app with a similar premise, recently raised $20 million in Series A funding.
As some social feeds start to feel stale — and less social — interactive games could be a way to reignite engagement. TikTok has also experimented with its own feed of mini games.
Read the full article here
