Meta introduces celebrity AI personalities like Snoop Dogg

What you need to know

• Meta announced its new AI assistant arriving for Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp which offers real-time information and discussions for users.
• AI photo editing software is arriving for Instagram first as it leverages Emu technology for various visual effects.
• AI stickers will also arrive as a way of letting users utilize their text-based descriptions to create the perfect add-on for chats and stories.

At Meta Connect, the parent company behind Facebook is announced several new AI experiences users will get to experiment with soon.

According to a blog post, Meta AI is a the latest player in the AI chatbot space. The company calls this is a new AI assistant, akin to Bard or ChatGPT, that "you can interact with like a person." Meta adds the custom model utilizes Llama 2, its largest language model, for text-based discussions. And, through its partnership with Bing, users will find access to "real-time information" and several AI image generation tools.

This new Meta AI assistant can be found on Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp first before arriving on Ray-Ban Meta and the Quest 3 in the future. Meta AI is in beta and is reportedly only for U.S. users at this time, as well.

Additionally, Meta is attempting to bring "personality" to its AI technology via social media influencers and icons. There are 28 unique AIs that users can message, portrayed by people such as Snoop Dogg, Kendall Jenner, Charlie D'Amelio, Naomi Osaka, and many more. The AI chatbot aims to capture each influencer's unique flair and traits as they portray different characters for users to interact with for guidance on cooking, writing, boxing, and other activities.

These AI characters are rolling out today in the U.S., available on WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram.

Meta is working on bringing some AI photo editing software to its ecosystem, as well. The announcement post states "Restyle" and "Backdrop" are features that will soon appear on Instagram backed by the image generation technology, Emu.

Restyle is a tool that lets users add a visual element to a photo based on a description given to the AI software. Meta says users can use descriptors such as "watercolor" or "torn edges" to help the AI craft their ideal image.

Backdrop, as the name suggests, can alter the background of an image. Meta has partnered with SAM AI (Segment Anything Model) for this capability, giving users a way of grabbing what's at the forefront of an image and describing what new, creative thing they'd like behind it.

Meta will include tags on images, alerting others that an image edited with Reshape and Backdrop is AI-generated for the sake of safety and transparency.

Lastly, AI stickers are on the way for a little more creativity and imagination for our chats and stories. These stickers will utilize Llama 2 and Emu to turn a user's text prompts into a high-quality sticker for use.

The company is planning on rolling this feature out on WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, and Facebook Stories over the next month. However, Meta will let a few select English users gain access to it before it becomes widespread for everyone.

Meta is looking ahead to what more it can do with AI — and places it can plug it into. Businesses and content creators will soon find the tools required to create their own AIs that give strong callbacks to their brands and personalities. For creators, Meta informs that any AI crafted in their likeness must be sanctioned and controlled by the person before it can be approved and functional.

Moreover, Meta teases that it is creating an AI sandbox that will allow anyone to experiment with creating their own AI with "realism, embodiment, and connectedness." It's estimated this could arrive sometime during 2024.