Meta is bringing an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, dubbed Meta AI, with over two dozen personalities, to all three of its platforms – Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. There will be more than 28 characters available at launch, each played by different celebrities, having their own unique interest and personality.
At the conference, Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, emphasised that the company’s virtual assistant is not just limited to answering queries. “This is about entertainment and about helping you do things to connect with the people around you, helping you accomplish the things that you want,” said Zuckerberg.
This move is said to be Meta’s attempt to connect and interact with younger audiences.
A number of famous personalities, including Snoop Dogg and Kendall Jenner, have signed up to be the voice of various chatbots. Snoop Dogg will be playing the role of “Dungeon Master” to help players in adventure games, while Kendall Jenner will be your no-bullshit ride-or-die companion, “Billie.” Other celebrities include YouTuber Mr. Beast as “Zach,” the big brother who will roast you simply because he cares, Japanese Tennis player Naomi Osaka, who will be playing the anime-obsessed character “Tamika”, and the chef Roy Choi who will be enacting sous chef “Max,” helping users in coming up with new recipes.
Meta AI is powered by Llama 2, the company’s extensive language model, and will source answers for your queries using Microsoft’s Bing search engine. Aside from chatting, it can also create images through a new generator called Emu, which has been trained on 1.1 billion pictures and captions shared on Facebook or Instagram.
The first set of celebrity chatbots will be available starting today, though do note that they are still in beta and will only be available to users in the US. In the coming future, chatbots based on Bear Grylls, Chloe Kim, Josh Richards and others will be added in the coming weeks.