Meta brings Pocket, an app that lets you vibe-code and share games, to US users

Meta’s experimental vibe-coding gaming app, Pocket, is now rolling out to everyone in the U.S. The app, which arrived quietly last month in the test market of Brazil, allows people to generate small, interactive games using AI prompts, which are published to a scrollable feed. Based on Meta’s acqui-hire of the team at the vibe-coded gaming platform Gizmo earlier this year, these games — or “gizmos” as they’re called — respond to touch and the tilt of your phone, play sound effects, and can include clips of your favorite songs. They can also use photos from your camera roll or access your camera. The resulting games can then be shared on your profile, where others can save them, remix them into other creations, or simply repost them. PocketImage Credits:Meta The app is the latest example of Meta’s push to make AI creation tools mainstream, following its earlier efforts that included making AI-generated images with its Meta AI app as well as AI videos created with an experimental app called Vibes. Pocket now joins these and several other standalone mobile applications from Meta in recent months. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has credited the increased output to AI-enabled software development, which makes it faster for the company to test and ship new ideas. “Earlier this year, we shipped Instagram Instants. We also just launched Forum, a stand-alone Groups app, and Seller, a stand-alone Marketplace app. I expect it to become a lot easier to ship new apps,” he told analysts on July’s earnings call. “So we are planning to build out more ideas and use our recommendation systems to scale them.” In addition to Instants, Forum, and the Seller app, Meta has shipped an experiment involving AI bedtime stories, and this week, a Meta AI app for Mac. When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence. Sarah has worked as a reporter for TechCrunch since August 2011. She joined the company after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to her work as a reporter, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software. You can contact or verify outreach from Sarah by emailing sarahp@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at sarahperez.01 on Signal. View Bio