(Credit: Meta)
Meta is giving its AI assistant more of a voice by adding the ability to have spoken conversations.
At today's Meta Connect event, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the voice features will enable you to have "natural" conversations with the AI, powered by its Llama 3.2 model.
"I think voice is going to be a way more natural way of interacting with AI than text," Zuckerberg said. "It has the potential to be one of the most frequent ways we interact with AI.”
Meta AI—which lives inside Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Facebook—already has 500 million monthly users, and is “on track to being the most-used AI assistant by the end of this year," Zuckerberg said. (A company press release says it has 400 million monthly users and 185 million weekly users.)
Meta partnered with celebrities to embed their voices into the assistant, including Awkwafina, Dame Judi Dench, John Cena, Keegan Michael Key, and Kristen Bell. (OpenAI tried to do the same with Scarlett Johansson for its Voice Mode, but she declined.)
This is Meta's second attempt at celebrity AI integration. At last year's Connect, it debuted "AI influencers" that used the likenesses of Snoop Dogg, Tom Brady, and Kendall Jenner in chats. They didn't actually speak, though, and Meta scrapped the program last month.
The new celebrity AIs appear to just be fun voices to chat with, though they also include a version of physical impersonation. During the keynote event, Zuckerberg "talked" with the digital likeness of author Don Allen Stevenson III. However, it appeared to represent himself, not his likeness acting as another character, per the previous approach.
AI Video Translation, Auto-Dubbing
Translating audio and video is another key focus for Meta AI. The company is testing an audio translation tool for Instagram Reels, which could help creators reach a wider audience, along with a new auto-dubbing and lip-syncing feature that makes creators appear like they are speaking in a different language.
"With automatic dubbing and lip syncing, Meta AI will simulate the speaker’s voice in another language and sync their lips to match," Meta says. It's currently testing on Instagram and Facebook for creators in Latin America and the US in English and Spanish, with plans to expand to more creators and languages.
Expect Meta's AI-Generated Photos in Your Feed
Meta AI is getting an expanded set of photo capabilities, for users and itself. The social media company will start showing its own AI-generated content in Facebook and Instagram feeds "based on your interests or current trends." It will surface AI prompts for users to "take that content in a new direction," or create new content in real time.
Users can send their own photos to the AI assistant. It can answer questions about them and help with edits if you need something "added, removed or changed in the photo – from changing your outfit to replacing the background with a rainbow," Meta says.
For extra personalization, the AI can generate custom backgrounds for Instagram stories, using context clues from the photo you are sharing. (YouTube Shorts also debuted an AI background generator last week.) It can also turn an image of yourself into a superhero and share it on social media, or make it your Facebook profile picture.