Meta launches AI chatbots and stickers

Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta AI, a general purpose assistant at their annual Connect conference yesterday. They have also launched 28 AI characters played by folks like SnoopDogg, Mr. Beast and Kendall Jenner. In addition to the assistant and characters, there are AI stickers and image editing tools.

What’s going on here?

Meta adds AI chatbots and features to its apps—some are helpful, some are sassy.

What does this mean?

Meta AI is available on WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram in the US. It is coming to Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and Quest 3. It is hooked to the internet via Bing from the get-go. Typing /imagine will also let you generate photorealistic images.

The AI characters each have a different personality. For eg: MrBeast is Zach, the big brother who will roast you—because he cares. They will have IG and FB profiles but are not connected to the internet.

AI stickers are added to all Meta apps. With upcoming AI editing tools named Restyle and Backdrop, you can change the styles and background for your photos. These are made possible by Meta’s new image generation model called Emu.

Why should I care?

Meta has the biggest social distribution in the world and they are meeting their users on these familiar platforms. It’s similar to what YouTube aimed at with their launch last week. Users won’t care if the AI sticker has one finger messed up, if the alternative is going to another app and breaking the chat flow with their pal. With this increased adoption, you will now have more AI-generated content in your feeds, if there wasn’t enough already.