Courtesy of Meta
If you've ever wished there were two of you to get the job done, Meta might have just made that possible — at least on social media.
The company announced Monday that it is rolling out AI Studio in the US, a tool for users to create their own custom AI character.
Creators can use these AI profiles as extensions of themselves to talk to followers and friends on Instagram, Messenger, WhatsApp, and the web. The chatbot, built with Meta's latest AI model, Llama 3.1, will be accessible through ai.meta.com/ai-studio or on the Instagram app.
Users will be able to customize their AIs' names, personalities, and tones and give instructions on how their chatbots behave. A handbook provided by Meta shows off example directions from the type of language ("vocabulary from the 1950s") to the format of their responses ("a chef who provides recipes in bulleted lists").
"Whether it's sharing facts about themselves or linking to their favorite brands and past videos, creator AIs can help creators reach more people and fans get responses faster," Meta wrote in a blog post.
Creators can also decide who their AI replies to, any topics to avoid, and links they want to share. The company said that responses from AI characters are clearly labeled to provide "full transparency for fans."
Despite Meta's unsuccessful first attempt at AI characters last year, which featured AI assistants played by celebrities, AI-powered chatbots have been pouring into the market with decent interest from consumers.
Character.AI, a platform that allows users to create and talk to chatbots based on famous figures, was downloaded 1.7 million times in one week in May of last year, Business Insider previously reported. Other users have even been finding love via Replika, an app that creates AI chatbots for romance and companionship.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently said in an interview with AI news YouTuber Rowan Cheung that Meta's newest entry into the chatbot race is focused on allowing both creators and small businesses to create personal AI agents that reflect their values and objectives.
"I think we're going to live in a world where there are going to be hundreds of millions of billions of different AI agents," he said. "Eventually, probably more AI agents than there are people in the world, and that people are just going to interact with them in all these different ways."
