Why Facebook, Inc.'s "M" Personal Assistant Is Crucial

During Facebook's second-quarter earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors monetization was on its way to Messenger. It would take time, of course, he emphasized. But just because it's going to take time doesn't mean the company isn't hard at work on the early stages of making this happen. Indeed, Facebook is already making strides toward this outcome. The first big step is the company's new personalized digital assistant, M, built right into Messenger.

Image source: Facebook.

What is M?Haven't seen M yet? You're not alone. Facebook has only launched the personalized assistant for a couple hundred people in the Bay Area, according to Re/Code. But the company plans to eventually launch M for everyone using Messenger.

Facebook's head of messaging products, David Marcus, explained its M project in a post on Facebook.

"M is a personal digital assistant inside of Messenger that completes tasks and finds information on your behalf," Marcus said. "It's powered by artificial intelligence that's trained and supervised by people."

Marcus continued:

The unspoken purpose for M? A first step in building Facebook's Messenger -- and maybe eventually even WhatsApp -- into huge, lucrative businesses.

M for monetizationInvestors can easily see how M fits into Facebook's plan to monetize messenger by reviewing Zuckerberg's comments related to turning its messaging platforms into businesses during the company's second-quarter earnings call.

Facebook plans to enable businesses to communicate and interact with users in Messenger. While Zuckerberg said he intends for these business-to-customer interactions to begin organically, the CEO emphasized it would eventually morph these connections into revenue stream.

Facebook's personal assistant for Messenger, M. Image source: Facebook.

Zuckerberg explained:

Faceboook says M will be ready and capable to help users find, order, and pay for items all from within an app. While the social network isn't monetizing any part of these transactions or connections yet, this is a critical step in getting users comfortable with interacting with businesses in messaging apps.

During the second-quarter call, Zuckerberg likened the introduction of businesses in Messenger to the way the company first brought business to Facebook with Pages. Initially, businesses only share information on Facebook organically via Page posts. But, over time, Facebook introduced targeting and ad products for Page owners.

M isn't just an intelligent assistant. It's an intelligent step forward for Facebook in monetizing the hundreds of millions of users it has on its messaging apps.

The article Why Facebook, Inc.'s "M" Personal Assistant Is Crucial originally appeared on Fool.com.

Daniel Sparks has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns and recommends Facebook. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.