Your friend, girlfriend, therapist? What Mark Zuckerberg thinks about future of AI, Meta's Llama AI app, more

Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Meta Platforms, thinks that the future of artificial technology (AI) lies in a blended reality, with people being smart enough to choose what is good for them. Speaking to Dwarkesh Patel's podcast titled ‘Meta’s AGI Plan’, Mark Zuckerberg discussed the use of AI in daily life, AI tools and what he envisions is the future of AI.

Mark Zuckerberg had a similar chat with Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella at Meta's LlamaCon 2025 in California on April 29.

Mark Zuckerberg on ‘AI friends, therapists & girlfriends’

When asked by Patel about how AI could ensure healthy relationships for people who already “meaningfully” interact with “AI therapists, friends, maybe more”, Mark Zuckerberg felt that solutions would have to come as behaviours emerged over time. 

“There are a lot of questions that you only can really answer as you start seeing the behaviors. Probably the most important upfront thing is just to ask that question and care about it at each step along the way,” he replied.

The tech billionaire was also keen to not box AI among “things that are not good”, explaining that he thinks “being too prescriptive upfront … often cuts off value”.

Mark Zuckerberg: ‘Need Framework For What People Find Valuable’

“People use stuff that's valuable for them. One of my core guiding principles in designing products is that people are smart. They know what's valuable in their lives. Every once in a while, something bad happens in a product and you want to make sure you design your product well to minimise that. But if you think something, someone, is doing is bad and they think it's really valuable, most of the time in my experience, they're right and you're wrong,” he explained.

He added that we need frameworks after understanding why people find value in something and why its helpful in their life.

On AI Replacing Social Interactions: ‘Probably Not’

Mark Zuckerberg feels that most people are going to use AI for social tasks, noting, “Already, one of the main things we see people using Meta AI for is talking through difficult conversations they need to have with people (girlfriend, boss, etc.) in their lives.”

He shared his learnings from running a social media company, saying that an average American has fewer than three people they would consider friends, but “has demand for meaningfully more”.

“There's a lot of concern people raise like: ‘Is this going to replace real-world, in-person connections?’ And my default is that the answer to that is probably not. There are all these things that are better about physical connections when you can have them. But the reality is that people just don't have as much connection as they want. They feel more alone a lot of the time than they would like,” Mark Zuckerberg said, adding that as AI functions evolve, society will “find the vocabulary” for this is valuable.

His Vision: What Ends Up Happening in 5 Years?

Mark Zuckerberg acknowleged that most of the work in virtual therapists, virual-girlfriends related fields “is very early”, adding that Meta's Reality Labs is working on Codec Avatars “and it actually feels like a real person”.

“That's where it's going. You'll be able to have an always-on video chat with the AI. The gestures are important too. More than half of communication, when you're actually having a conversation, is not the words you speak. It's all the nonverbal stuff. How do we make sure this is not what ends up happening in five years?” he said.

Mark Zuckerberg added that its “crazy” that for how important the digital world is in all our lives, “the only way we access it is through these physical, digital screens”, adding: “It just seems like we're at the point with technology where the physical and digital world should really be fully blended. But I agree. I think a big part of the design principles around that will be around how you'll be interacting with people.”

Mark Zuckerberg, Satya Nadella on AI, Meta, Microsoft, More…

In a similar conversation with Satya Nadella during LlamaCon 2025, Mark Zuckerberg the two discussed speed of AI development and how the technology is shifting in their companies, AP reported.

“If this (AI) is going to lead to massive increases in productivity, that needs to be reflected in major increases in GDP. This is going take some multiple years, many years, to play out. I’m curious how you think, what’s your current outlook on what we should be looking for to understand the progress that this is making?” Zuckerberg asked.

Satya Nadella said that “AI has promise, but has to deliver real change in productivity — and that requires software and also management change, right? Because in some sense, people have to work with it differently.”

Meta's AI App Aims to Compete with ChatGPT

Meta on April 29 launched its new standalone AI assistant app — Meta AI — powered by the comapny's large language model (LLM) Llama which will compete OpenAI’s ChatGPT, among others, according to a Bloomberg report.

The application was already rolled out across Meta's other products Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp; and the standalone app makes its available for other users. The app for released at LlamaCon.

Mark Zuckerberg described it as "your personal AI — designed around voice conversations”, and as a tool that can help users learn about news or navigate personal issues. It will also feature a social feed where people can post about the ways in which they’re using AI. “This is the beginning of what’s going to be a long journey to build this out,” Mark Zuckerberg added.