Instagram may soon let you poke your friends just like Facebook

If you were a digital junkie back in the day who spent a lot of time online on Facebook, you’d know that the app had a special feature that allowed users to poke others. In fact, Facebook still has that feature even though we are unaware of how many people use it. But it appears that some do as the feature is now coming to Meta’s other app, Instagram. You may soon be able to poke your friends getting their attention to start a conversation.

Instagram testing a new poke button on the profile

According to an Instagram app tester on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram is working on a new ability that allows users to poke others. A screenshot shared by the user revealed the same. The poke button will be placed on the profile page, just before the notification button. Once tapped on the poke button, the other user may receive a notification.

#Instagram is working on the ability to send a Poke 👀 pic.twitter.com/D6SFfcMwYp

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It is worth noting that Instagram tests such features regularly, however, not all features end up coming to the stable version. That said, just because this feature was spotted in testing, it may or may not be available to the public.

Instagram hasn’t officially confirmed this feature yet, if it plans to bring it to the stable version of the app, it should announce that soon. As for the feature, it can be handy at times but may also act like spam if used incorrectly.

In other news, Meta recently launched its AI chatbot and stuffed it into three of its popular apps – Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. On Instagram, users can access it via DMs or by heading to the Search page.

On the Search bar in either of the places, you should see a circular ring icon, which is nothing but Meta AI. To start using it, you need to tap on it and start asking your queries. Meta’s AI chatbot can answer your complex questions, generate images, and suggest reels or posts based on your interests.

The company recently updated Meta AI with the latest Llama 3 AI model. This makes the AI chatbot more smarter. Despite that, Meta AI is still free to use for everyone. WhatsApp users in India can access the AI chatbot on the home screen of the app. You can follow the hyperlinked post to see how you can use the AI chatbot in WhatsApp right now.