Meta
Meta AI has moved beyond typing — the chatbot can now see and speak.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the new features Wednesday at Meta's Connect event. The chatbot can use these capabilities to understand the world better and provide faster responses, the company said.
Meta AI can reply to photos shared in the chat and answer questions about what's in them, according to the company. For example, if you take a photo of a bird and don't know what kind it is, you can ask Meta AI to identify it. And the chatbot can also now edit photos, including changing the background, removing objects, or adding accessories.
The chatbot now also offers celebrity voices like those of Awkwafina, Judi Dench, John Cena, Keegan-Michael Key, and Kristen Bell. The voices can be selected as your AI voice of choice to answer you any time you ask Meta AI something.
It's not the first time Meta AI has made celebrity voices available — but the last time didn't go so well, and the feature was discontinued less than a year after its release. The company had signed deals with celebrities including Kendall Jenner, Tom Brady, and Snoop Dogg, paying them up to $5 million to use their voices for two years.
Meta ended up pivoting to focus on its new AI Studio, which Zuckerberg said was an important part of Meta's vision to help people create their own AIs.
The new features come just as OpenAI rolls out its Advanced Voice Mode. Similarly, the two features have a blue circle that indicates voice interaction.
But unlike Meta, OpenAI hasn't quite nailed the celebrity-voice feature yet. When the ChatGPT maker used a voice that sounded like Scarlett Johansson, the actor lawyered up.
You can interact with a Meta AI voice on WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. Over the next month, the feature is set to roll out in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
According to the company, Meta is also experimenting with other features on its platforms, such as automatic video dubbing and lip-syncing on Reels. These features are supposed to help users see more content in their preferred languages and let creators reach more users around the world.
Meta AI is also testing imagined content on Facebook and Instagram. Some images will be based on your interests, and others may feature you, the company said, "so you can be the star of your own story and share your favorites with friends."
