(Credit: Meta)
It's not the real Tom Brady, Kendall Jenner, or Snoop Dogg. But Meta’s celebrity-infused chatbots are now available to all users in the US.
Facebook’s parent company first debuted the celebrity chatbots at its Meta Connect event in September. But at the time, the AI characters were only available to select users as a beta.
On Wednesday, Meta said all US users can now message the chatbots through WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. To do so, simply start a new chat in any of the apps. An option should appear allowing you to access or create “AI Chat.”
(Meta/WhatsApp)You’ll then be given the option to message a long list of chatbots that use the likeness of celebrities and influencers, including former NBA player Dwyane Wade, socialite Paris Hilton, and YouTube Star MrBeast.
But don’t expect the chatbots to be based on the celebrity’s actual life or personality. The chatbots merely assume the personas of fictitious characters. For example, the Snoop Dogg chatbot operates as “Dungeon Master,” and specializes in narrating text-based RPGs similar to Dungeons and Dragons. If you ask the bot about Snopp Dogg’s rapping career, you’ll be rebuffed. “I am but a humble Dungeon Master, not a musician or songwriter,” it’ll say.
The same is true if you talk to Bru, the sports-related chatbot that uses former NFL player Tom Brady’s likeness. Bru told us he's married when the real Tom Brady famously divorced supermodel Gisele Bündchen.
(Credit: WhatsApp)The other limitation is that the chatbots merely display a looping video of the celebrity reacting to your messages with different facial expressions. The chatbots don’t talk back.
Still, Meta is hoping the AI characters will appeal to users looking for more fun and variety with today’s chatbots. It also has ambitions to pair the chatbots with voice and video in the future.
In addition, Meta says “search is coming to more of our AIs. Two of our sports-related AIs, Bru and Perry, have been serving up responses powered by Bing since day one. And now we’re rolling out this functionality to Luiz, Coco, Lorena, Tamika, Izzy and Jade, too.”
The other improvement the company is working on involves allowing the chatbot to remember conversations. “That means you can return to a particular AI and pick up where you left off,” the company added, which could help make the chatbots seem a little more human.