Google has Siri. Microsoft will be releasing Cortana along with Windows 10. Now, Facebook is rumored to be testing Money Penny, its own virtual assistant. The company's employees are said to be testing the feature.
Based on reports about how MoneyPenny works, it seems to be going towards the same direction as startups like GoButler. The social networking site's version of the virtual assistant is said to mainly help users in researching and purchasing products. Real people will be working behind MoneyPenny to aid its future users. This may be the main difference between Facebook's newest addition and Siri and Cortana.
The virtual concierge will be incorporated on Facebook's Messenger App. Facebook has 1.44 billion active users every month, while Messenger has 500 million users. It still leaves a lot to be seen whether MoneyPenny will be benefiting from its parent company's wide demographic. No release date has been indicated for MoneyPenny as of yet.
Last month, Messenger has become an independent app. Users do not need to have a Facebook account to sign up for Messenger anymore. The clutter-free chatting experience Messenger offers seems to have worked for users. Messenger's more than half a billion-user audience is proof of that. Since being a platform separated from Facebook has attracted millions to the app, MoneyPenny may enjoy the same reception.
But MoneyPenny, if and when released, can just be part of the greater scheme of things for Facebook. While still largely a social networking empire, the company's development of additional features, and launching and acquisition of apps (a recent buy is WhatsApp), it may all still eventually lead to attracting more Facebook users. Even as the Messenger app, for example, is a standalone, its first users, and almost all of its users, are people with Facebook accounts.
However MoneyPenny will perform in the midst of other online concierge and virtual assistants, Facebook is clearly taking an innovative and experimental step with this one.
