Meta today detailed four tests inside Forum, its standalone app for Facebook Groups: a member-recognition role, two additions to the Ask search tool and interest labels on posts, according to a post in the company's newsroom.

In Short

Meta said today that it is testing a new badge for helpful members of Facebook groups, plus two new ways to search group posts with AI inside Forum, its separate app for groups. It matters to anyone who runs, joins or reads groups, because the badge replaces two older ways of marking useful members and comes with perks, including posts that appear sooner. For now these are only tests: the badge is running worldwide on Facebook and in the US on Forum, the AI additions sit in an app offered only in the US, and Meta has not said whether any of it becomes permanent.

What Meta is testing

According to Meta, Forum is "a purpose-built app we're exploring" for people who want to go further into Facebook Groups. The app syncs with a person's existing groups, gathers them in a single feed and signs in through a Facebook account. Testing began in May, Meta says, and the app can now be downloaded in the US on iOS and Android.

The newsroom post, filed under Facebook and Product News, opens with three takeaways: what Forum is, how it aims to surface advice from real people and let members browse groups by interest, and a new way of recognising the members whose contributions carry a community. Beneath them sit four separate tests. The first is a recognition role for helpful members. The second and third are new behaviours for Ask, the AI search tool inside Forum. The fourth is a set of topic labels on posts.

Scope varies by test. According to Meta, the role is starting to run on Forum in the US and on Facebook globally, while the other three are described as tests on Forum, which is offered only in the US.

Several things are missing from the post: user counts, the size of any test group, a named spokesperson and any mention of advertising. Meta also defers the administrator side of the app, saying only that it will share more on how it is building for admins "in the coming weeks".

One role replaces two older markers

Meta says the new recognition role takes the place of the contributor badges and the group expert role. The criteria are behavioural rather than numerical. The role is earned through contributions that help a community: answering questions, sharing firsthand experiences, offering practical tips and recommendations, and starting conversations that bring people together. The post gives no posting threshold, tenure requirement or score.

Awarding runs on two tracks. Admins, whom Meta describes as knowing their communities best, can grant the role directly, and Meta will nominate members to help admins spot candidates. Recipients are notified and can remove themselves at any time.

A new badge accompanies the role, along with benefits that, according to Meta, include posts going live more quickly. Which delay is being shortened, whether an admin approval queue or an automated review, and by how much, is not stated. Nor does the post connect the role to ranking or distribution. All posts, it adds, remain subject to Meta's Community Standards.

Admin controls have been shifting for some time. On November 3, 2025, Facebook let administrators convert private groups to public, with posts from the private period staying visible only to existing members, administrators and moderators. Groups have also acquired a second kind of marker: on July 24, 2026 Meta set out Facebook Verified, a free badge built on a recorded video selfie, and said it would appear in Groups alongside Marketplace, Dating and Profile. The two answer different questions. One asks whether a real person sits behind an account; the other, whether that person's posts help anyone.

Ask, the AI layer, gets two test features

When Forum appeared in the US App Store on May 22, 2026, it carried two AI features: Ask, and an assistant for group admins offering engagement summaries, post ideas and moderation support. According to Meta, Ask uses AI to highlight existing group posts and comments. It draws on groups a person already belongs to as well as public groups not yet joined, and lets a person step from an answer directly into the underlying discussion.

The two additions are narrow. One handles comparison: when a person is weighing choices, Ask pulls recommendations together, and Meta's examples are a running shoe, a gift and something to read next. The other changes the Ask home page, which now suggests new questions based on recent searches so that a line of enquiry can continue.

Technical detail is thin. Meta's description, AI used to highlight existing posts and comments, places Ask in the territory of grounding, the practice of tying a generated answer to retrieved source material. The post says the answers are "grounded in real experience". It does not say which model produces them, whether Ask relies on retrieval-augmented generation, how posts are ranked when groups disagree, or how old a post can be before it stops counting. Nor does it address whether members can keep their posts out of Ask results.

Data use is a further gap. Meta said in October 2025 that interactions with its AI features would inform content and ad personalisation from December 16, 2025. Whether Ask queries count is not addressed. In May, Meta had not confirmed the position for Forum, and today's post is silent on it.

Topic labels add a second way to sort posts

Meta says some people may begin to see topic labels on posts, with "Solo Travel" and "Korean Food" as its examples. Tapping a label leads to more conversations on the same topic. Groups are organised by membership; labels would add an axis organised by subject. The post does not say whether the results span several groups or stay within one, nor whether labels are applied by posters, admins or an automated system.

From a quiet May release to a newsroom post

Forum is not the first dedicated Groups app. Meta shipped a standalone Facebook Groups app for iOS and Android in November 2014 and discontinued it in 2017 without a detailed public explanation. The present app surfaced in May with no launch event, and a Meta spokesperson confirmed to Engadget that it remained in testing. There was no formal announcement then; the newsroom post arrives more than four months later.

One discrepancy sits between the two accounts. The May release was limited to the US App Store, and PPC Land recorded no confirmed date for Android. Meta's post now lists both iOS and Android in the US but does not say when the Android version became available.

Meta handled another standalone app differently. Seller, the Marketplace selling app released on July 24, 2026, came with a newsroom post, screenshots and an image pack, a treatment Forum did not receive in May.

Why the marketing community may care

The commercial backdrop is Reddit, whose advertising revenue reached $625 million in the first quarter of 2026, up 74%, and $762 million in the second, up 64%. The second-quarter report nonetheless coincided with a 12.49% after-hours fall in the shares, as United States daily users grew 6% to 53.2 million and management described search referrals as choppy. Reddit's chief executive, Steve Huffman, said users who arrive directly are worth multiples of those referred by search. A standalone app is one way of generating that kind of direct usage; Meta's post does not frame Forum in those terms, and it never names Reddit. Outlets including The Verge, TNW and MacRumors drew the comparison in May.

The example prompts matter for a second reason. A running shoe, a gift and something to read are purchase-adjacent questions. Reddit's Path to Purchase 2026 survey, which covered 13,956 US adults, reported that half of US shoppers verify AI product recommendations on Reddit before buying. Whether Ask can play a similar verifying role is untested, and the post offers no evidence either way.

For advertisers, the absences matter as much as the features. Forum did not appear to carry advertising when it first surfaced, and Facebook Groups have not historically served as inventory comparable to News Feed or Stories. Nothing in today's post mentions placements, measurement, brand safety or data use. The admin details due in the coming weeks are the next scheduled disclosure, and will show how far Meta intends to take the standalone app.

Timeline

Summary

Who: Meta Platforms, through a post in its newsroom; the changes affect members and admins of Facebook groups and users of the Forum app. No spokesperson is named.

What: Four tests inside Forum, the standalone Facebook Groups app: a recognition role replacing contributor badges and the group expert role, a comparison behaviour and a suggested-questions home page for Ask, and topic labels on posts. Meta also says more on admin tools will follow.

When: Today, September 29, 2026. Meta says testing of Forum began in May; the app first appeared in the US App Store on May 22, 2026. Admin details are due "in the coming weeks".

Where: Forum is offered in the US on iOS and Android. The recognition role is also starting to test on Facebook globally.

Why: Meta frames the changes as making it easier for people to find advice grounded in firsthand experience and to go deeper into the groups that matter to them. The post gives no commercial rationale; the context, including Reddit's advertising growth, comes from PPC Land's earlier coverage.