Meta May Launch Its AI Chatbots With Personalities This Week
Meta might launch AI chatbots with personalities this week.
According to The Wall Street Journal, the company has been working on chatbots with distinct personalities as a way to attract younger users, and it might be ready to launch those chatbots as early as this week.
Citing people familiar with the matter, the paper says that the chatbots are currently being tested internally by employees and are meant to drive engagement with users rather than serve a specific practical task; however, some bots may be able to help with some productivity-related tasks.
This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about Meta’s plan to create chatbots with personality.
In June, a screenshot leaked of an intro feature for a “Chat with an AI” feature within Instagram that would allow users to select one of 30 AI personalities to chat with within the app to answer questions and give advice.
One of the bots is simply called “Bob the robot,” according to documents reviewed by the paper, and is a character similar to Bender from Futurama because “him being a sassy robot taps into the type of farcical humor that is resonating with young people.” There’s also a chatbot called “Alvin the Alien” as well as a misogynistic bot named Gavin.
In February we reported that Meta was working on its own chatbots for Facebook and Instagram, so the existence of the bots isn’t exactly a surprise.
At the time, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company was interested in creating “delightful experiences” with the bots.
“In the short term, we'll focus on building creative and expressive tools,” he added. “Over the longer term, we'll focus on developing AI personas that can help people in a variety of ways.”
When and if they do launch, Meta’s chatbots will
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