Meta, and in particular some of its services, has a serious problem with younger audiencesand many of these people, whom the company would like to convert into users of its services, associate them with a more mature user profile. To put it more clearly, for many of them, WhatsApp and especially Facebook are services for the elderly compared to alternatives such as Instagram (also from Meta), but especially TikTok, in which they find a much more natural fit.

That’s the problem (for Meta, that is) identified for quite a long time. For example, about two years ago, we reflected on this in relation to Facebook, which is undoubtedly the company’s service most affected by this perception. And in that time they’ve tried everything from vilifying TikTok… to trying to copy it, creating the controversial (and at least for now thankfully suspended) Instagram for kids, and a series of other changes to try to regain its lost appeal, but it seems none of this worked among the younger ones.

Artificial intelligence is in vogue, and one of its biggest representatives is found in chatbots. And although it didn’t seem like it at first, during 2023 Meta showed that it has something to say when it comes to AI. So with chatbots all the rage and the ability to create many services, it seems that someone at the company has completed the imaginary dotted line in what they propose could be the solution to this problem.

As we can read in The Wall Street Journal (behind the paywall), Meta is considering launching chatbots to attract younger users. A project that I have my fingers crossed that they take into account all the hard learning of BlenderBot, the universal chatbot that they released on August 5th of last year and which was already anti-Semitic and conspiratorial on the 9th of that month. And the referee is not very positive.

According to the mentioned publication Metaplans are not limited to a specific serviceOn the contrary, they intend to create an entire army of bots with their own “personalities” that extend their reach to all their services. In addition, they will also create the necessary tools for celebrities to create their own chatbots that reproduce their behavior. However, I doubt that celebrities will be interested in using this option.