Perhaps the only big tech player not pursuing some sort of commercial AI chatbot was Meta, after Amazon’s recent spending to grab a contending spot. On Wednesday Meta, in a fashionably late entrance to the party, announced that it was releasing its own AI assistant, along with a multitude of AI personalities across WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger. Oh, and AI stickers.
Meta AI – boring name, by the way
Sure, Meta’s got Llama 2, but this is different. Kind of. Meta’s AI, tediously named Meta AI is supposedly just like every other chatbot out there, described as an “assistant you can interact with like a person”. It’ll be arriving for the platforms we mentioned, before eventually hitting the Meta Quest 3 and… Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.
According to Ahmad Al-Dahle, Meta’s VP of generative AI (via The Verge), Meta AI is a “custom-made” large language model (LLM) that’s “based on a lot of the core principles behind Llama 2,” the not-so-commercial LLM that can be used freely by those conducting research or for commercial purposes. It’s also a bit more difficult to get hold of than say, ChatGPT – an issue we’re sure won’t befall the social media giant again.
Meta AI differs even more in its tone, which has been fine-tuned to be a more presentable face to the public. Al-Dahle’s team has spent plenty of time “refining additional data sets for conversations so that we can create a tone that is conversational and friendly in the way that the assistant responds. A lot of existing AIs can be robotic or bland.” It’s also been trained to give “very concise” answers, apparently.
One of Meta AI’s more noticeable features is its ability to generate images from text, just like you’d find on DALL-E 2 (now 3) or Midjourney. Just chuck in a “@MetaAI /imagine” followed by a descriptive prompt to get the best results. It’s also partnering with Microsoft’s Bing to keep the chatbot as up-to-date as possible with web results and sources – a rare instance across the sea of LLMs – especially for a free one.
Snoop Dogg, the Dungeon Master
Making their debut alongside the far-cooler Meta AI assistant is Meta’s roster of AI characters all available across the same suite of apps – WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. Most are wearing a celebrity’s face – like “Bru” a sports fanatic that looks like Tom Brady. Snoop Dogg is, of course, The Dungeon Master, because why not?
The idea, we think, is to chat with the AI personalities, and… we’ll get back to you on that when Meta decides what these things are for. Maybe it’s just a branding thing. You know, a way for Meta to point at its Snoop Dogg Dungeon Master AI and say “Look!”. It’ll certainly generate some public interest, with the 28-large roster Meta has cooked up here, spanning from TikTok stars to MrBeast. Each has its own Facebook and Instagram profile, with a full list found here.
At the time of writing, there’s no way to try out either Meta AI or the extensive cast of AI personalities. Both are limited to a beta in the US, with no word on when a global rollout will land. Enjoy the AI-free landscape that’s currently affixed to your WhatsApp – it may not stay that way for long.