Besides the long-awaited Meta Quest 3 and the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, Meta also spent a lot of today’s Meta Connect event discussing AI and the company even showed off a slew of new AI chatbots.
Instead of taking a more traditional approach like OpenAI is doing with ChatGPT, Facebook’s parent company has decided it wants to have a bit more fun with the technology. To this end, Meta has started creating AIs that “have more personality, opinions, and interests, and are a bit more fun to interact with” as seen in its presentation.
In total, Meta showed off 28 AIs that users will soon be able to message on WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram and to top it all off, they each have their own unique backstories. While Snoop Dogg playing the role of Dungeon Master to let users choose their own adventure stole the show, here’s are all the different AIs showcased by Meta so far:
- Charli D’Amelio as Coco, Dance enthusiast
- Chris Paul as Perry, Pro golfer helping you perfect your stroke
- Dwyane Wade as Victor, Ironman triathlete motivating you to be your best self
- Izzy Adesanya as Luiz, Showy MMA prospect who can back up his trash talk
- Kendall Jenner as Billie, No-BS, ride-or-die companion
- LaurDIY as Dylan, Quirky DIY and Craft expert and companion for Gen Z
- MrBeast as Zach, The big brother who will roast you — because he cares
- Naomi Osaka as Tamika, Anime-obsessed Sailor Senshi in training
- Paris Hilton as Amber, Detective partner for solving whodunnits
- Raven Ross as Angie, Workout class queen who balances fitness with meditation
- Roy Choi as Max, Seasoned sous chef for culinary tips and tricks
- Sam Kerr as Sally, Free-spirited friend who’ll tell you when to take a deep breath
- Snoop Dogg as Dungeon Master, Choose your own adventure with the Dungeon Master
- Tom Brady as Bru, Wisecracking sports debater who pulls no punches
You actually won’t have to wait long to begin interacting with Meta’s new AIs as they’ll start rolling out in beta in the U.S. today. However, the company plans to add new characters played by Bear Grylls, Chloe Kim and Josh Richards in the coming weeks.
Meta's new AI characters are a real head scratcher
While we’re absolutely going to go hands-on with Meta’s new AIs once they’re available, at the moment, I’m still trying to make heads or tails of why they exist in the first place.
Would someone really prefer to chat with an AI played by a celebrity to get workout tips, sports facts or to learn new dance moves when they can achieve the same thing on their own with a simple web search?
It’s also worth noting that the pool of knowledge Meta’s AIs can draw from is currently “limited to information that largely existed prior to 2023” which means you won’t be able to discuss the latest goings-on with your preferred AI character. However, you can always ask Meta AI, Bru or Perry as their knowledge base is more up to date. Still though, chatting with one of Meta AIs won’t likely be the fastest way to get information, but they make that information a bit more interesting to digest.
At the same time, this could all be a bit more of a PR stunt designed to showcase Meta’s AI technology and how it can quickly build new chatbots since this was a big focus of Meta CEO Mark Zuckberg’s presentation. These new AI characters may be just the beginning with McDonalds, Wendy’s, Starbucks and other brands building their own AIs on the company’s platform down the line, only time will tell.
For me personally, Meta has piqued my interest and I’m going to give its new AIs a try as I prefer using Google Bard over ChatGPT thanks to its more conversational approach and similarities to Google Assistant.
More from Tom's Guide
