Generative AI is firmly in the sights of social media. Meta is forming a new product group around generative AI to focus on ‘building delightful experiences’ into all of the company’s products, while Snap has unveiled a new chatbot running on OpenAI’s GPT technology.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed the seat-shuffling in a Facebook post, stating that teams currently working on generative AI will be pulled together. Detail was light on the scale of projects, but Zuckerberg noted a focus on ‘developing AI personas’ longer term, and experimentations taking place on chat in WhatsApp and Messenger, as well as with images, such as creative Instagram filters and advertising formats. The team will report to chief product officer Chris Cox, as reported by multiple sources.
“In the short term, we’ll focus on building creative and expressive tools,” wrote Zuckerberg. “Over the longer term, we’ll focus on developing AI personas that can help people in a variety of ways.
“We have a lot of foundational work to do before getting to the really futuristic experiences, but I’m excited about all of the new things we’ll build along the way,” he added.
Meanwhile, Snap this week announced the launch of My AI for Snapchat, a chatbot powered by the latest version of ChatGPT. The bot is available as an ‘experimental’ feature for Snapchat+ paid subscribers, and among the potential use cases include recommendations, organisation, and content creation.
The announcements from Meta and Snap serve as another tinder bundle with which to ignite the positioning taking place from big tech around generative AI. As this publication has explored, many of the major players are making moves, from Microsoft, to Google, to Amazon. Not everything has gone smoothly to say the least, but this remains the hottest of hot spaces right now. At MWC, taking place this week in Barcelona, one analyst said AI was being ‘mentioned in relation to pretty much everything.’
The recent blunders experienced by Microsoft and Alphabet – the latter wiping a cool $120 billion off the company’s value – were top of mind for Snap, who took the unusual step of apologising in advance for any foot-in-mouth moments users may experience.
The choice quote reads: “As with all AI-powered chatbots, My AI is prone to hallucination and can be tricked into saying just about anything. Please be aware of its many deficiencies and sorry in advance! While My AI is designed to avoid biased, incorrect, harmful or misleading information, mistakes may occur. Please do not share any secrets with My AI and do not rely on it for advice.”
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