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Facebook Messenger is an App that allows Facebook users to chat with other Facebook users from their mobile devices. Users cannot send messages from the regular Facebook Mobile App, and so installing Messenger on your phone can be crucial to communication if you rely on Facebook Messages.

If you’re already active on Facebook’s Messenger App, you may have noticed a change today (or in the upcoming days as Facebook performs slow roll-outs). The ever-growing world of automated virtual “personal assistants” has just gotten a new AI member- M.

Originally announced in its beta form over a year ago, today M is expanding to all Messenger users (iOS or Android) in the US. If you don’t have your Apps set to automatically update you may need to check for a Messenger update.

M works by recognizing content and intention in a conversation as it is happening and will suggest actions including:

Stickers: M will suggest stickers based on your conversation including trigger words like “Thank you” or “Bye-bye.”

Money: M will recognize discussion of money or payments and present users with the option of sending or requesting money.

Location: M can suggest users share their location during a conversation.

Making plans: M can help coordinate a plan if users are talking about getting together.

Starting a poll (in group conversations only): If you’re having a hard time making decisions in your Group Chat (or you’re just very diplomatic) M can help you create a poll and take votes.

Ride Share: If you happen to be talking about going somewhere, M can suggest ride options via Uber or Lyft.

M will learn the more you use it, suggesting things that may be more relevant to your needs. Users will always have the option to ignore or dismiss a suggestion by M, and M can be muted in “M Settings”.

Facebook expects to grow the M interface as users test out the feature for themselves and potentially make suggestions for improvement.

Check out the full article from The Facebook Newsroom here.

Snap Inc. (formerly known as Snapchat) has been growing exponentially ever since its debut in 2011. Initially a simple app where users could send one another time sensitive images and videos, Snap Inc. has grown to revolutionize our personal augmented reality consumption, break advertising impression records for major companies, and has very recently released its first piece of hardware – Spectacles. In the last few weeks the company has had some big news for us consumers.

The first Spectacles are sold, and only available at Snapbots:

Never one for convention, Snap Inc.’s new Spectacles will only be available at sunglasses wielding vending machines known as Snapbots. Currently the Snapbots will show up to cities at random, where long lines will form full of hopeful Spectacle-starved Snap lovers, but there is no word on whether or not this model will change. For the time being anyone eagerly awaiting their chance at Spectacles can locate the vending machines by heading over to Spectacles.com/map. If you’re very worried about missing out however, consider signing up for an email alert by Snapbot Spotter.

I’m personally hoping the big box stores or malls will get their own semi-permanent Snapbots for the upcoming Holiday gifting season.

Snap Inc. is Going Public:

This morning it was reported that Snap Inc. has filed for its initial public offering. The company is already valued at around $18 billion USD, but the switch could raise that to as much as $35 billion. Such a large figure could easily keep Snapchat in the top Apps for years and significantly grow its influence. The company has clearly been expanding and trying (successfully) to compete for a share of user’s time ever since its release- a move that attracted the attention of Facebook in 2013. Since Snap’s refusal to sell three years ago, the two social giants have been in tense competition with one another with Facebook even going as far as to create their own Snapchat-esque App (not available in the U.S.). Now that Snap Inc. will get this influx of capital we are all waiting with baited breath for the counter-punch to Facebook, and to see what new hardware this out-of-the-box company comes up with next!