Llama, the large language model that powers Meta AI surpasses 1 billion downloads

Meta says Spotify, the popular music streaming platform with billions of users worldwide uses Llama to “help deliver customised and contextualized content recommendations for new songs, artists, audiobooks and podcasts. As it turns out, Llama is also being used to enhance the listening experience by helping users discover new artists and in improving the company’s AI DJ feature.

The winners of the Austin Llama Impact hackathon used the large language model to develop an application that helps people in the area discover cultural gems and local businesses. Dubbed Unveil, the app uses Llama’s image analysis and natural language capabilities to help identify landmarks, murals, street art and sculptures and describe their cultural and historical significance.

Meta is reportedly gearing up to launch several new Llama models in the next few months, one of which includes some “reasoning” models that will compete with the likes of DeepSeek R1 and OpenAI’s o3-mini. The company is also hosting Llamacon, its first ever generative AI conference on April 29, where we expect to see new large language models with improved capabilities.