Financial Times Tuesday reported that tech giant Meta Platforms is all set to roll out a series of AI-powered chatbots with distinct personalities as early as September.
The company has been working on prototypes for chatbots that can engage in human-like conversations with users, aiming to enhance user engagement on its social media platforms.
Based in Menlo Park, California, the social media giant is testing various chatbot personalities, including one that speaks like Abraham Lincoln and another that provides travel advice in the style of a surfer.
These chatbots are intended to serve as a new search function and offer personalised recommendations to users.
The development of these chatbots coincides with Meta’s efforts to improve user retention on its recently launched text-based app, Threads, which experienced a significant drop in users shortly after its release on July 5.
Although Reuters reached out to Meta for comment on the Financial Times report, the company declined to provide any additional information.
Despite challenges faced in 2022, Meta’s advertising revenue has seen a robust increase, and the company forecasts third-quarter revenue above market expectations.
Meta has also been capitalizing on the growing excitement surrounding AI technology, and it recently introduced a commercial version of its open-source AI model, Llama 2, which Microsoft will distribute through its Azure cloud service and run on the Windows operating system.
In a separate report, Bloomberg News revealed that Apple is working on AI offerings similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard.
The company has developed its own framework called ‘Ajax’ for creating large language models and is currently testing a chatbot that some engineers refer to as ‘Apple GPT’.
Meta shares surged nearly 8% at the end of last month as a rosy revenue forecast showed that artificial intelligence was helping the social media giant boost engagement and ad sales even in an uncertain economy.
The Facebook owner was set to add about $60 billion to its market value after strong second-quarter earnings encouraged 18 analysts to lift their target price on a stock that has already more than doubled this year.
Meta in mid-July announced releasing a commercial version of its open-source artificial intelligence model Llama, the company said on Tuesday, giving start-ups and other businesses a powerful free-of-charge alternative to pricey proprietary models sold by OpenAI and Google.
The new version of the model, called Llama 2, will be distributed by Microsoft through its Azure cloud service and will run on the Windows operating system, Meta said in a blog post, referring to Microsoft as “our preferred partner” for the release.