Meta has launched a new app called Pocket, a tool that lets people build small, interactive apps and games from AI prompts. There was no press release and no keynote moment. According to TechCrunch AI, the app went live on the App Store and Google Play on June 29, 2026, and only got spotted this week by reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi, who posted a Play Store screenshot on X.
Pocket comes straight out of Meta’s acquisition of Gizmo, the vibe-coded gaming platform whose team Meta picked up earlier this year. The app calls itself “a creative platform for making and sharing gizmos,” which is the name it gives to these little interactive experiences. What stands out here is how closely Pocket mirrors the product Meta bought. Gizmo’s original app is still listed, and TechCrunch AI notes the two share the same core setup: write a prompt, get a playable experience, then scroll a discovery feed to try what other people made.
What Pocket does
Based on the details reported by TechCrunch AI, here’s the shape of it:
- Prompt-to-app creation. You describe what you want, and the AI builds a small interactive app or game.
- A scrollable feed. You can play with “gizmos” other users have created, so it works as much like a social feed as a creation tool.
- Sharing built in. The whole point is making and sharing, not just private tinkering.
That feed-first design matters. Meta isn’t just handing people a builder. It’s wrapping creation inside the same endless-scroll format that powers Instagram and Facebook, which tells you how the company thinks these AI tools will spread.
Where it fits in Meta’s AI push
Pocket isn’t a one-off. It’s the latest piece of Meta’s effort to push AI creation into the mainstream. The company already offers AI-generated images through its Meta AI app, AI videos through an app called Vibes, and AI features baked into its social platforms and its creator video-editing app, Edits. Pocket extends that line into interactive software and games.
This is Meta betting that regular users, not just developers, want to make things with AI. The vibe-coding angle, building working software from plain-language prompts, has been one of the loudest trends in AI this year. Meta buying a team already doing it, then quietly shipping its own version, is a clear signal it wants a seat at that table.
Availability and the catch
Pocket is live now on both the App Store and Google Play. But Meta hasn’t officially announced it, and the company hadn’t responded to TechCrunch AI’s request for comment at the time of reporting. That silence points to something specific: this is likely still an early experiment, not a full launch.
A few caveats worth keeping in mind:
- App intelligence firm Appfigures can’t yet confirm any downloads, because Pocket is so new.
- No official word means features, pricing, and availability could all shift.
- The lack of a formal debut suggests Meta is testing the waters before committing.
Here’s the encouraging part for Meta. Gizmo, the app this grew out of, had racked up 635,000 lifetime installs across iOS and Android, with a 98% positive sentiment score, according to Appfigures data cited by TechCrunch AI. That’s a real base of users who liked the original enough to stick around. Meta now gets to fold that proven concept into its own distribution machine, which reaches billions.
The quiet rollout is the tell. Meta tends to soft-launch products it wants to test before a big marketing push, and Pocket fits that pattern. If it gains traction, expect a louder announcement and tighter ties to Instagram and Facebook. If it doesn’t, it may join the long list of Meta experiments that fade without fanfare. Either way, watch how quickly the feed fills up with user-made gizmos. That’s the number that will decide whether Pocket becomes a real platform or stays a side project. More details are available at the original TechCrunch AI report.