Meta - the tech behemoth and parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and more - is scrapping its celebrity AI chatbots, and taking a different tack with this concept (which we’ll come back to shortly).
This was Meta’s first major foray into consumer AI products, and it introduced photorealistic moving AI avatars, modeled after the likenesses of chosen celebs and social media influencers. These were integrated across Meta platforms like Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
Some examples of the AI avatars offered include Billie (modeled on Kendall Jenner), Bru (based on Tom Brady), and Dungeon Master (Snoop Dog). Despite having been infused with the power of generative AI and a celebrity likeness, apparently some of the people who tried these ‘virtual celebs’ just found them odd.
According to The Information, these AI chatbots didn’t pull in significant follower numbers, a fact that was even more noticeable when compared to the official accounts of the associated celebrities. Obviously, this isn’t what Meta wanted to see, especially as it paid millions of dollars to some of these celebrities to license their likenesses.
The end result is that Meta has put a stop to this project (for now, at least), given that it seemingly hasn’t been the attention-grabber that the company envisioned.
Insights gleaned and lessons learned - what's next for Meta?
When The Information checked out the links to the accounts of the AI avatars on Facebook and Instagram, the site discovered a message informing would-be users that the pages are no longer available. However, it appears that you can still interact with the chatbots on certain Meta platforms, but they’re no longer represented by the celebrities which they were modeled after. If you check out the profile of Bru, for instance, in a Meta app, you’ll now be met with an AI-generated image of a man dressed in a football jersey instead of an image of Tom Brady.
Meta isn’t bowing out of the consumer AI game just yet, though, because as we mentioned at the outset, there’s another project on the boil, launched earlier this week in the US - namely AI studio. This new feature lets creators craft their own AI avatars to act as an online proxy, and answer common fan questions.
According to a Meta spokesperson who gave a statement to The Information, the company learned a great deal from building these AI avatars. There’s still likely to be gold in those AI hills when it comes to consumer chatbots and celebrity tie-ins, for any firm that can believably sell such products - and as long as that’s the case, I think we’ll see Meta drive as hard as any other company to stake its claim.