Instagram allows creating custom AI chatbots

Meta announced that it will provide users with a tool called AI Studio to build virtual characters with customized personalities, traits and interests, based on their own personalities.

"Every creator can build their own version of AI or an assistant that their community can interact with," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a conversation at the SIGGRAPH conference with Jensen. Huang, CEO of Nvidia, the chipmaker at the center of today's artificial intelligence boom thanks to its all-important GPU chips.

Meta said AI Studio will begin rolling out to Instagram Business account users on July 29 and will be available to all Meta users in the US in the coming weeks. The tool will be accessible at ai.meta.com/ai-studio and through the Instagram app, but the chatbots will also be accessible through WhatsApp, Messenger and the web.

Zuckerberg said he expects users to create custom AI chatbots for entertainment or as personal support tools — for example, role-playing asking for a raise or resolving an argument with a friend. "You can basically role-play and see how the conversation goes, and get feedback on it," he said .

The company said AI Studio will allow users to limit the people their chatbots interact with and prevent them from discussing certain topics. AI Studio's usage policy prohibits users from representing real people other than themselves. The policy will also place limits on historical figures, religious figures, serial killers or "subjects that may be considered hateful, obscene or illegal" .

In a blog post, Meta promoted several chatbots built by celebrities, including 'Eat Like You Live There!', a chatbot to recommend restaurant recommendations by chef Marc Murphy out and "What Lens Bro", a bot for photography created by photographer Angel Barclay. The post said several Instagram personalities - Chris Ashley, Violet Benson, Don Allen and Kane Kallaway - had created their own versions of chatbots.

Instagram allows creating custom AI chatbots Picture 1 Instagram allows creating custom AI chatbots Picture 1

Meta's AI Studio manual says users can customize the chatbot by providing a detailed description, along with a name and image, and then specify how it will respond to specific inputs. Llama will then rely on those instructions to improvise its responses. Meta says Instagram users can "customize their AI based on things like their Instagram content, topics to avoid, and what links they want to share" .

Over the past year, Meta has become an AI success story thanks to its decision to make its powerful AI models available for free. Last week, the company released a robust version of its Llama large language model, giving developers, researchers, and startups free access to a model equivalent to the paid powerhouse behind OpenAI's ChatGPT. The company says its new chatbots are based on the latest version of Llama.

However, Meta has struggled to find the right direction for its own AI services. In September last year, the company launched a series of AI chatbots based on real celebrities. Among them are a fantasy role-playing bot based on Snoop Dogg, a witty sports bot based on Tom Brady, and a daily companion inspired by Kendall Jenner.

However, these bots did not make a big splash and Meta discontinued them. Jon Carvill, a spokesman for Meta, said the company has learned from previous experiments. "AI Studio is an evolution," he said.

There is a lot of evidence that users may find fully customizable bots more appealing. A company called Character AI, founded by several former Google employees who helped create breakthroughs in AI, has attracted millions of users to its own custom chatbots.

Zuckerberg also touted other new open source AI advances from Meta at SIGGRAPH, held in Denver this year. The company has developed a new tool to determine the content of images and videos called Segment Anything Model (SAM) 2. The previous version was widely used for image analysis. Meta says SAM 2 can be used to analyze the content of videos more effectively.

Zuckerberg introduced technology to track roaming cattle on his Kauai ranch. "Scientists use this tool to study coral reefs, natural habitats and landscape evolution ," he told CEO Huang.

Previously, in an interview with WIRED's Lauren Goode, CEO Huang said he "absolutely" wanted a "Jensen AI" that knew everything he ever said, ever wrote, and ever did. "You should be able to prompt it and hopefully something intelligent will be said ," he said. He can force stock analysts to ask bots - instead of him - questions about the company. "That's the first thing to get rid of ," he said with a laugh.