users with real-time information. The social media giant said Meta AI will offer breaking news, entertainment and lifestyle stories when users ask news-related questions, drawing from partnerships with outlets including CNN, Fox News, Le Monde, People and USA Today.

The feature will allow users to access "more diverse content sources" and receive links to partner websites to dive deeper into stories, Meta said in a blog post. Meta said the expansion aims to make its AI assistant "more responsive, accurate, and balanced" by incorporating diverse viewpoints, acknowledging that "real-time events can be challenging for current AI systems to keep up with." The initial partnerships span mainstream and conservative-leaning publications, including The Daily Caller and The Washington Examiner.

The company said it plans to continue adding partnerships and develop new features as competition intensifies among technology firms to enhance the capabilities of their AI assistants. Meta AI is available across the company's platforms, serving billions of users globally. The announcement comes as artificial intelligence companies, including ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, increasingly move to incorporate live web content and news feeds.

Meta has had a hot and cold relationship with the news media over the years. The company founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 declared that news was a very small share of user engagement on the company's platforms and began shutting down the Facebook News tab in markets like the United States, Britain and France. This also saw the end of multi-million dollar deals with leading news organizations. Zuckerberg also made the surprise decision in January to axe Meta's US fact-checking program, as he more closely aligned with the Trump administration's antipathy to establishment news.  That scheme had employed third-party fact checkers, many from news media organizations such as AFP, to expose misinformation disseminated on the platform. (Bssnews)