Facebook has started to publicly test its own attempt at a digital assistant to its users, as
previously rumored. Codenamed Moneypenny but now known as "M", the assistant exists within
Facebook Messenger for a small number of users, and allows them to complete various shopping-based tasks on the user's behalf, such as acquiring and delivering gifts to family members, booking a table at a restaurant, making travel arrangements, and other similar services.
According to Facebook head of messaging products David Marcus, M's ability to perform purchasing tasks and making appointments makes it different from its virtual competitors, including Siri, Google Now, and Cortana. While powered by artificial intelligence, Marcus advises the service still has the human touch, with M being "trained and supervised by people," potentially preventing it from causing any major financial issues such as buying expensive items.
The service operates entirely through Messenger, with users able to start a text-based conversation with M. Queries and requests can be made directly, with suggestions for items and services to buy being returned. After a confirmation, users can pay for what they ordered and have it delivered to an address of their choosing. Despite being a Facebook product, it won't have access to any user profiles, so addresses and preferences will still need to be provided to the service for the moment, though this could change in the future.
While the service is now "live," it is currently only available to a few hundred users based in the San Francisco Bay Area, with a full rollout across all US-based users unlikely to happen in the short term.
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