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While Meta hasn’t been making a huge deal about it, it is quietly introducing more and more generative AI bot creation and interaction features to its applications, allowing users to chat with AI characters on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger.
And it’s not just text-based conversation, users can now construct an AI chatbot with a voice, with a growing number of voice options to choose from.
By Gamuchirai Mapako
App researcher Jonah Manzano, shared images showing Meta’s “AI Studio”, in which users can create a chatbot with not only custom personality traits, but also a custom voice, with Meta recently adding a lot more voice options to choose from.
Meta’s even separated its different voice options into their own categories, making it easier to find the exact right tone, and pitch, for your AI persona.
Meta has been improving its bespoke AI development tools over the past year, and you can now add interests, defined conversation criteria for your bot, and an avatar image.
Last June, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg provided an overview of the company’s broader plan to enable the creation of “AI agents” in this way, which he says will eventually become key connectors for niche interests.
According to Zuckerberg, the primary goal of these bots will be to answer fact-based questions, with the more difficult aspect being to provide replies that are more creative and match the creator’s style.
According to Zuckerberg, creators will soon be able to train their bots on various parts of their social media presence, allowing them to create more lifelike versions of themselves.
Which also includes voice, and with so many options, users should be able to find a voice that matches their chosen style, and then enables them to have more present chats, even potentially through Meta’s Ray Ban smart glasses.
The update is another step in Meta’s broader plan to integrate many, many more AI characters into its apps, in order to facilitate more engagement.
Late last year, a Meta executive described the company’s goal for releasing millions of AI-powered profiles on Facebook and Instagram, where they will post, comment, and like exactly like actual people.
Chat is only the beginning, and with Meta investing $65 billion in AI infrastructure this year alone, you can see the foundation being laid for a profound shift in how we engage with its products.
The big question is how this will be beneficial?
Many people already engage tools like ChatGPT, utilising them as a sounding board and companion to check their thinking and generate new perspectives on personal issues. Logically, this might also apply to Meta’s AI bots, however Meta’s previous experiment with celebrity-influenced AI chatbots did not go as planned.
Back in 2023, Meta rolled out a range of chatbots on Messenger, which provided responses that had been guided by stars like Kendall Jenner, Dwyane Wade, Mr Beast, and many more.
They were rarely used, and Meta abandoned the concept less than a year after its first debut, which was the primary news of Meta’s Connect Conference. This is despite paying these celebrities millions of dollars to utilise their likenesses.
But, given the greater interest in AI, Meta is now re-framing the notion, and it plans to add many, many more bots by allowing anyone to develop them.
It honestly does not appear to be a viable option, as it is simply doubling down on a concept that failed to gain traction in the first place. However, with Meta’s enhanced AI models, perhaps people will be more drawn to these bots, and creators will be more interested in experimenting with their own bot creations, which they will then market to their audience.
Meta’s ultimate goal, as previously stated, is to enhance in-app engagement by encouraging more and more individuals to form continuous chat connections with these AI characters. And some of them will definitely catch on, which appears to be the key change in Meta’s strategy here: allowing everyone to throw their AI bot ideas at the wall and see what sticks.
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