NEW YORK, Aug 29 - Meta's Llama artificial

intelligence models are being used by companies including

Goldman Sachs ( GS ) and AT&T ( T ) for business functions like

customer service, document review and computer code generation,

the social media giant said in a statement on Thursday.

The mostly free-of-charge Llama models have been downloaded

almost 350 million times since Meta began releasing them

publicly last year, an increase from the 300 million downloads

the company announced when it released the biggest version of

its latest Llama 3 model in late July.

Usage via cloud providers like Amazon Web Services and

Microsoft Azure has also increased, more than doubling between

May and July this year, Meta said.

The announcement comes as Meta and other tech companies

plowing billions into AI have faced questions from investors

about how widespread adoption of the technology appears to be

and what kind of payoff they can expect for their spending.

Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has argued that

building state-of-the-art AI models and giving them away for

free best positions the company to avoid falling into a position

where it is constrained by a competitor's closed technology.

"The path for Llama to become the industry standard is by

being consistently competitive, efficient, and open generation

after generation," Zuckerberg wrote last month.

Although large language models like Llama have wowed users

with their ability to generate human-like prose on command, they

continue to struggle with certain logical tasks and are prone to

making factual errors, limiting their adoption in business

contexts.

Still, Meta pointed to a handful of large enterprises

dabbling with the Llama models as both evidence of their utility

and as an endorsement of their competitiveness with paid

alternatives, like models from industry leader OpenAI.

Other companies it said were using Llama include Japanese

bank Nomura Holdings ( NMR ), food delivery service DoorDash ( DASH )

and professional services provider Accenture ( ACN ).