Streets Ahead: Meta’s AI Search Engine, Foursquare Shutters App
In this week’s Streets Ahead update, we discuss Meta building an AI search engine and Foursquare shuttering it’s original app.
Meta Building an AI Search Engine?
The News Meta has reportedly been developing its own AI search engine, aiming to crawl and index the web for up-to-date information on current events and diverse topics to expand the capabilities of Meta AI. According to The Information, this initiative would reduce Meta’s reliance on Google and Bing, which currently provide external search capabilities for its platforms. Instead, Meta’s search engine would directly support the AI chatbot feature available to its 4 billion global users across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.
To enhance its AI search responses, Meta has also partnered with Reuters to stream news content into its platform. This will allow Meta AI to deliver timely, news-based responses without leaving the Meta ecosystem. While there’s no clear timeline for the public rollout of Meta’s proprietary search features, the effort highlights its strategy to integrate search and conversational AI more deeply within its platforms.
Why This Matters Apple has long been rumored to be developing its own search engine, and with OpenAI’s recent launch of SearchGPT, it seemed inevitable that Meta would enter the search arena with its own AI-driven functionality. Meta’s initiative directly addresses a major limitation of large language models: while they excel at understanding and generating language, they rely on large but static datasets that don’t provide up-to-the-minute information. By incorporating real-time search, Meta aims to give its AI chatbot the ability to deliver the live updates users expect.
Meta’s entry into search also comes at a moment of potential change in Google’s longstanding dominance. With AI-powered platforms challenging traditional search engines and regulatory pressures increasing, the search market could see more competition soon. By leveraging its access to 4 billion users across its platforms, Meta is positioning itself to be a strong contender in this evolving field of AI-driven search.
Foursquare Discontinues Original App
The News Foursquare has announced that it will discontinue its original app, now called Foursquare City Guide, on December 15. The app, once known for pioneering location-based check-ins since its debut at SXSW in 2009, was later rebranded and refocused on local discovery, business profiles, and personalized recommendations. This shutdown won’t impact the Swarm app, the other half of the original Foursquare split, which remains available and dedicated to social check-ins.
Why This Matters For those who remember Foursquare’s early days, it was once a standout in the local app scene, pioneering location-based check-ins. Now, as Foursquare City Guide reaches the end of its journey, it marks a shift in the local space, where consolidation has given rise to just a few major players like Google, Apple Maps, Yelp, and Bing. Back when Foursquare launched, the local app ecosystem was vibrant, with dozens of contenders. Today, however, high entry barriers mean that any new disruption in local is likely to come from established platforms with a wide user base, like TikTok or OpenAI, which are poised to shape the future of local discovery.
