Meta Connect 2024 is coming. Will Meta, whose stock price has repeatedly hit new highs, usher in a major catalyst?

According to the financial news app Zhitong Finance, media reports citing informed sources revealed that this week, social media company Meta Platforms (META.US), the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, is planning to disclose that it has signed agreements with well-known Hollywood stars such as Judy Dench, Kristen Bell, and John Cena to voice the company's Meta AI chatbot, and may also announce Meta's first AR glasses. As Meta's stock price hits a historic high, the upcoming Meta Connect 2024 conference may significantly boost the stock price, where Meta is expected to announce the latest developments in the field of artificial intelligence and Meta VR/AR headset progress.

Informed sources revealed that a new artificial intelligence audio feature from Meta is expected to be announced at the Meta Connect 2024 conference on Wednesday Eastern Time. It will provide users of Meta's social platforms with the option to choose voices from five well-known actors for the tech giant's AI chatbot Meta AI, including Hollywood stars Okafina and Jigang-Michael Kai. The sources added that there are also other unbranded generic voices available for Meta users to choose from.

Media reports citing informed sources disclosed that this week, Meta's various applications, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, will launch the Meta AI voice-over feature with the voices of the mentioned celebrities in the United States and other English-speaking markets.

Bloomberg previously reported that Meta is negotiating with Hollywood and social celebrities to embed their voices in Meta's artificial intelligence projects.

Since 2022, when Microsoft-backed OpenAI launched the groundbreaking AI chatbot ChatGPT, generative artificial intelligence services have continued to be a hot topic of discussion. Globally, not only many tech companies, but companies from various industries are striving to launch AI chatbots driven by large language models (LLMs) based on their own strengths and databases, which can provide services for rapid and efficient generation of content, images, videos, and voice through AI chatbots.

Meta's exclusive AI chatbot Meta AI has been in fierce competition with Gemini developed by Google under Alphabet and ChatGPT under OpenAI since its launch on its social platforms.

As early as May this year, OpenAI demonstrated a similar customized audio feature for its AI chatbot ChatGPT. However, after users pointed out that it sounded like Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson, OpenAI paused the use of the AI voiceover named "Sky" in the audible version of ChatGPT.

In a statement released at the time, OpenAI stated: "We believe that artificial intelligence voices should not deliberately mimic the unique voices of celebrities. In our view, Sky's voice is not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson, but belongs to a different professional actress who uses her natural speaking voice." "

Hollywood superstar Scarlett Johansson, who played Black Widow in the "Avengers" series, portrayed a fictional AI chat assistant in the globally popular movie "HER", telling a romantic story of a man falling in love with a virtual artificial intelligence voiced by Johansson. Meta AI's vision is similar - hoping to soon launch an exclusive "all-knowing AI companion" that understands user preferences and habits extremely well, similar to the character in the movie "HER" after numerous iterations.

Meta VR/AR Welcomes New Developments

In addition, media reports citing insiders revealed that the company is expected to unveil updates to its virtual and augmented reality headsets (VR/AR headsets) at the upcoming Meta Connect 2024 event, especially the first AR glasses version by Meta, and discuss its plans for other hardware devices, such as the Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.

Earlier this month, Ray-Ban smart glasses manufacturer EssilorLuxottica expanded its deep collaboration with Meta, aiming to jointly develop multiple generations of smart glasses products over the next decade. Last year, Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses became the first consumer electronics product to include the audio version of Meta AI chatbot.

According to The Verge, the most anticipated product at this Meta Connect event may be the portable VR headset device Quest 3S priced at $299.99. The Verge also mentioned that Meta may focus on introducing its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. The highlights and pricing of this potential new Meta product may put Apple Inc. (AAPL.US) and Snap Inc. (SNAP.US) on high alert due to competitive products.

Bank of America analyst Justin Post expects Meta to showcase a prototype of its new AR headset and focus more on mixed reality and augmented reality during the demonstration, rather than the past emphasis on virtual reality.

Meta Expected to Reveal New Research Progress in the "Linux of Large Models" Field - Llama

Bank of America analyst Post also stated that the Meta Connect conference may shift its focus to augmented reality (AR) and showcase the progress of its Llama artificial intelligence large model iteration.

Post mentioned that Meta may introduce new artificial intelligence features for its Messenger and WhatsApp platforms, and update the open-source large language model Llama launched by Meta. Post also believes that the Meta AI new feature demonstration will have the opportunity to showcase the integration and upgrade of artificial intelligence features for Facebook and Instagram, as well as how Meta AI enhances user engagement.

In July, Meta launched its Llama 3.1 series open-source artificial intelligence large model. Analysts from Morgan Stanley stated that this release of the open-source AI large model may lead Meta AI to become the "largest AI assistant in terms of user scale by the end of the year".

" Meta released three Llama 3.1 open-source AI large language models in July, with Llama 3.1 405B containing 405 billion parameters, making it Meta's largest model to date. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg referred to Llama 3.1 as the "starting point of art," with performance metrics expected to rival the most powerful models published by OpenAI and Google. Additionally, Meta, along with NVIDIA, and cloud giants Amazon AWS and Microsoft, have joined forces. NVIDIA's AI Foundry and the cloud giants will provide customized services for the global enterprise using the Llama 3.1 model.

Meta claims that Llama 3.1 405B can compete with OpenAI's closed-source large model GPT-4o and Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet in many AI large model performance metrics. For example, Llama 3.1 405B outperforms GPT-4o in tasks such as text-to-code generation and chart generation, achieving a "mixed bag of results" in a comprehensive performance comparison with GPT-4o and Claude 3.5 Sonnet.

Can Meta, whose stock price has repeatedly hit new highs, continue to soar?

According to many Wall Street analysts, Meta, with over 3 billion users globally, may see its Meta AI chatbot become the most popular AI chatbot worldwide, surpassing ChatGPT in popularity. This is a core logic behind analysts' optimism about Meta's stock price. Advertising and software applications are undoubtedly areas where Meta excels, leveraging its massive user base of over 3 billion to be in an optimal position for AI monetization.

Analyst Barton Crockett from the well-known Wall Street investment firm Rosenblatt believes that Meta Connect 2024 could lead a new news cycle in global artificial intelligence in the near future, potentially acting as a catalyst for Meta itself and the rising trend of AI-related tech stocks.

The analyst suggests that Meta may introduce cheaper virtual reality headsets, showcase new Meta augmented reality glasses, and emphasize progress in integrating artificial intelligence into existing software products. The Rosenblatt analyst team rates Meta as a "buy," with a target price of up to $643 within 12 months. In comparison, Meta's stock price closed at $564.41 on Monday, hitting a historical high of $573.98 during trading, showing an unstoppable trend of hitting new highs throughout this year