If chatbots sometimes help to facilitate contact with a company, they can also seem dehumanizing and limited in their functions. To respond to these criticisms and improve the retention of its users, Meta, Facebook’s parent company, intends to use generative artificial intelligence.
So the FinancialTimes, who was able to speak with three sources familiar with Meta’s plans, reveals that the American giant intends to develop chatbots with a personality. They should be integrated into the platforms of the group, owner of Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram or even Threads.
Chat with Abraham Lincoln and with a surfer
From September, Meta could launch chatbots with different personalities. The American company would have worked on a chatbot responding in the manner of Abraham Lincoln as well as on another dedicated to travel advice, in the role and style of a surfer, we learn from one of the sources of the FinancialTimes.
It would not be the first personified artificial intelligences. We can for example cite character.ai, or even the feline parody of ChatGPT, CatGPT. However, Meta’s chatbot strike force is very important and goes beyond its platforms. Many sites use the services of Facebook Messenger to engage in conversation with their prospects and customers, via Chatfuel for example. This allows them to quickly answer questions about a product, or to provide after-sales service with a chatbot.
In an interview with his investors on Wednesday July 26, Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Meta, had mentioned “AI agents that act as assistants, coaches, or can help you interact with businesses and creators”adding that, in the future as he imagines, “we don’t think there will be a single AI that people will interact with.”
Finally, Meta obliges, these new chatbots could make it possible to populate the famous metaverse so dear to the heart of the company and its leader Mark Zuckerberg. This last “devotes all his energy and time to developing this idea”according to one of the sources of the FinancialTimes.
This interest of Gafam or Snap (formerly Snapchat) and TikTok in generative artificial intelligences can nevertheless raise concerns. Indeed, the establishment of a direct relationship between the platforms and their users can lead to a sharing of personal data, conscious or not, even more important than it already is. Similarly, the processing of information by social media chatbots deserves close observation.