From restaurant bookings to dog-friendly beach recommendations, social network’s new technology blends AI with human helpers

Facebook is launching a virtual assistant that combines artificial intelligence (AI) technology with a team of human helpers, to compete with services such as Apple’s Siri, Google Now and Microsoft’s Cortana.

Facebook M will sit within the social network’s Facebook Messenger app, with people interacting with it using messages as if it were one of their friends.

“Facebook’s M trainers have customer service backgrounds. They make the trickier judgment calls, and perform other tasks that software can’t. If you ask M to plan a birthday dinner for your friend, the software might book the Uber and the restaurant, but a person might surprise your friend at the end of the night by sending over birthday cupcakes from her favorite bakery.”

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