Meta is about to introduce a revolutionary new feature in its services, including Facebook and Instagram. According to reported from Financial Times, the company could launch AI-powered “characters” as early as next month. This innovation will offer users a whole new way to browse, get suggestions and interact with Meta's products. According to three sources inside the company, the chatbots could have distinct personalities.
A revolutionary interaction with social media. Meta and her AI introduce the personalities
This upcoming launch could place Meta in a position advantageous on two fronts. On the one hand, the introduction of chatbots could be a way to increase interaction with services like Facebook and Instagram, in response to growing competition from TikTok. On the other hand, chatbots could serve as one showcase of Meta's AI capabilities, in a context of competition with OpenAI, supported by Microsoft, and Bard by Google.
The CEO of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, has never hidden his plans to integrate “AI characters” in the company's products. In February, it announced the creation of a new product group focused on generative AI. “Long term, we will focus on developing AI characters that can help people in a variety of ways“said Zuckerberg. “We're exploring experiences with text (like chats in WhatsApp and Messenger), with images (like Instagram's creative filters and ad formats), and with video and multimodal experiences".
In June, app researcher Alessandro Paluzzi discovered signs of a new one “Chat with an AI” feature in the Instagram app who would be able to answer questions and give advice in the style of 30 different AI characters. According to the leak, the chatbot might as well help users compose messages.
Zuckerberg mentioned the company's AI initiatives again in a results call last week. He stated that the company is developing these initiatives using its LLaMA language model. "You can imagine many ways AI can help people connect and express themselves in our apps, creative tools that make it easier and more fun to share content, agents that act as assistants, coaches or that can help you interact with companies and creators and more"the CEO said. Further details on Meta's AI roadmap are expected to be announced at its Connect developer event in September.
While the CEO's comments underlined the benefits such chatbots could have for Meta users, the Financial Times points out that they may also provide the company with more data about their interests to help with advertising targeting.
