Since the rise of TikTok and Snapchat before it, Meta has seen many younger users leave. First with Facebook and in recent years Instagram has increasingly had to cope. Mark Zuckerberg now wants to do something about it by developing various AI chatbots, each with their own personality.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Meta Platforms wants to bring back some of its teen audience after hordes of young people migrated to other social media. The company wants to achieve this through the use of AI chatbots, each of which has its own specific character. These would be rolled out on various meta channels very soon. The newspaper had the opportunity to view internal documents on the matter and speak to sources close to the topic.

With AI

According to TWSJ, the rollout could even take place this week. The chatbots are currently still being tested by Meta employees. The current expectation is that the company will announce the AI ​​bots at its own Meta Connect conference, taking place in Menlo Park on Wednesday and Thursday. It is no coincidence that this is the Californian community where Meta is headquartered.

Some of the bots are designed to increase engagement, particularly with a younger audience, but others also serve more practical tasks, such as assisting with coding. Zuckerberg already mentioned two years ago that (especially) young adults would be brought back. So it’s not a quick idea for meta.

AI has been on a steep and rapid rise for some time now and meta couldn’t keep up. Not only with models like Llama 2, but also through applications for its apps and for the famous Metaverse. We previously reported on Meta’s ambitious plans to become a mega player in the AI ​​market. Now the company wants its resources, especially these Gen AI personaswhat the AI ​​bots are called internally, so use them to appeal to the youth.

Bad character

Dozens of chatbots would be ready to use out of the box and Meta would even be working on the possibility of celebrities and major YouTubers having their own bot to interact with fans. Some chatbots that have been leaked have already raised questions about their employability:

• Bob the Robot: a very sarcastic bot with high intelligence and great quick wit, inspired by the character Bender from the animated series Futurama, who is not exactly a positive role model
• Alvin The Alien: a bot that insistently asked testers for their personal information
• Gavin: a bot that made very misogynistic comments, was negative about Meta and Zuckerberg, and also praised competing social media

Meta is not the first company with this idea. Snapchat has “My AI” and the startup “Character.AI” allows users to create AI chatbots with a specific character to interact with. TWSJ mentions a warning from researchers at three major American universities: giving chatbots a certain character increases the risk of dubious results. The examples above seem to confirm this statement.