Facebook has created a virtual assistant with a view to take on Apple's Siri, Google Now and Microsoft's Cortana. The new Facebook virtual assistant has been dubbed "M" and it is a new feature for Messenger. The "M" is powered by artificial intelligence as well as real human supposed "M Trainers."

According to IB Times, Messenger M was released to select users in the San Francisco Bay Area on Wednesday, Aug. 26, but sooner or later, Facebook is hopeful the feature will be available for all of its almost 1.5 billion users.

Users can ask the virtual assistant for help in an assortment of tasks like organize a birthday party, select the right gift for a friend or book a vacation by just messaging M and using normal language. Since the new service is powered by software as well as humans, users can also ask M to call their cable companies, wait on the phone and manage customer service when someone finally picks up.

According to reports David Marcus is the brain behind M. Previously, Marcus was CEO of PayPal prior to joining Facebook in 2014 to head the company's messaging products. Marcus is hopeful that M will be so useful in helping users get jobs done that Messenger will eventually become the first destination on their smartphone, ahead of rivals like Google.

 "Unlike other Artificial Intelligence-based services in the market, M can actually complete tasks on your behalf," Marcus stated in a Facebook last week, adding "It can purchase items, get gifts delivered to your loved ones, book restaurants, travel arrangements, appointments and way more."

Facebook hopes that M's reliance on human as well as artificial intelligence will differentiate the service from Google Now, Siri and Cortana, all of which aspire to help users get tasks done on their smartphone only making use of software. These tools can be useful for the users to send text messages, create a reminder or name the song playing near them. However, they are unable to get tasks done in the real world, unlike what Facebook claims M can do.

Talking to Wired about M's capabilities, Marcus said, "An engineer went to Paris for a couple days, and his friend asked M to redecorate his desk in a French style." He added, "Twenty-four hours later, the desk was decorated with a proper napkin, baguette bread, and a beret."

A team of contractors with customer service background is powering M's human intelligence. According Marcus, eventually he expects Facebook to hire thousands of these workers as M expands to other cities and other countries as well. Marcus also hopes that the service will become further intelligent and be capable of getting more tasks done on its own.

Marcus said on Facebook, "This is early in the journey to build M into an at-scale service," adding, "But it's an exciting step towards enabling people on Messenger to get things done across a variety of things, so they can get more time to focus on what's important in their lives."