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Meta launched a Reddit-like app for Facebook Groups

The new Forum app gives Facebook Groups a separate experience focused on conversations, communities, and AI-assisted answers.

  • meta
  • facebook
  • communities
  • ai
  • social

Summary

Meta has quietly launched a new standalone app called `Forum`, designed to give more prominence to conversations inside Facebook Groups. The app is being positioned as a dedicated space for deeper discussions, useful answers, and communities built around specific interests.

According to TechCrunch, Forum works in a Reddit-like way, but with one important difference: it is directly connected to Facebook Groups infrastructure. After signing in with a Facebook account, the app loads the user's groups, profile, and activity. Posts made in Forum remain visible inside the corresponding Facebook groups.

In practice

The app lets users post with a nickname, as they can already do in the main Facebook Groups experience. The proposal appears to be making communities less dependent on the traditional feed and more focused on ongoing conversations.

One of the most relevant features is an AI-powered `Ask` tab. It lets users ask questions and receive answers compiled from discussions across different groups. Meta has also added an AI assistant for admins, designed to help with community management and content moderation.

What we still don't know

This is not Meta's first attempt to turn Facebook Groups into a separate experience. In 2014, the company launched a standalone Groups app, but shut it down in 2017.

Forum arrives in a different context, as Meta is accelerating the launch of standalone apps and smaller product experiments. In recent weeks, the company also launched `Instants`, an app for sharing disappearing photos with Instagram friends. TechCrunch notes that some of these launches appear to borrow from formats already validated by competitors, in this case Reddit.

Why it matters

  • Forum could make Facebook Groups more useful as spaces for search, support, and knowledge discovery.
  • The AI layer could turn older community discussions into practical answers.
  • Meta is again testing whether groups are strong enough to justify a separate app.
  • The main risk is adoption: many users may not want another social app if the product feels like a reorganisation of Facebook.