AI was kind of dull and boring. But things are changing, and that they're changing fast.
Meta has been using AI in lots of things, and has been developing the technology to power many of its products. The thing is, the company has been shy in entering the AI chatbot market. It made a debut in the field when it introduced the LLaMA, which is a chatbot, but dedicated to researchers.
The company went a bit bolder when it introduced its successor, the LLaMA 2, which is a lot more powerful.
This time, to properly enter the competition, Meta decided to just partner with a bigger player instead of relying on its own.
By partnering with Microsoft, Meta is creating a 'Meta AI' chatbot, powered by Bing.
In an announcement, Meta said that:
"It’s powered by a custom model that leverages technology from Llama 2 and our latest large language model (LLM) research. In text-based chats, Meta AI has access to real-time information through our search partnership with Bing and offers a tool for image generation."
For anyone who has used OpenAI’s ChatGPT, or other chatbots, Meta AI should immediately feel familiar.
Meta sees it as a general-purpose assistant for everything from planning a trip with friends in a group chat to answering questions users would normally ask a search engine.
By partnering with Bing, Meta ensures that Meta AI can get real-time web results.
Another big aspect of the Meta AI is its ability to generate images, just like Bing and Midjourney.
According to Microsoft in its own blog post:
This however, only scratches the surface, because Meta is seemingly all out in introducing AI to enhance the experience of using its products.
Previously, AI never really had the front stage.
This time, it's drooling all over.
Besides Meta's partnership with Microsoft, the company also said that it's introducing 28 more AIs in beta, which are played by "cultural icons and influencers."
These people include:
Charli D’Amelio as Coco, Chris Paul as Perry, Dwyane Wade as Victor, Izzy Adesanya as Luiz, Kendall Jenner as Billie, LaurDIY as Dylan, MrBeast as Zach, Naomi Osaka as Tamika, Paris Hilton as Amber, Raven Ross as Angie, Roy Choi as Max, Sam Kerr as Sally, Snoop Dogg as Dungeon Master, and Tom Brady as Bru
To make it appealing, these characters are represented by their profile image, which can animate based on the conversation.
With AI, users can also create stickers across Meta's apps.
" [...] soon you’ll be able to edit your images or even co-create them with friends on Instagram using our new AI editing tools, restyle and backdrop," said Meta.
Meta is also planning to make AIs dedicated for businesses and creators, and that the company is also releasing its AI studio for people and developers to build their own AIs.
"These new AI experiences also come with a new set of challenges for our industry. We’re rolling out our new AIs slowly and have built in safeguards," said Meta.
In another announcement, the company said that the safeguards are built into the AI before the AI is launched, "so people can have safer and more enjoyable experiences."
"As with all generative AI systems, the models could return inaccurate or inappropriate outputs. We’ll continue to improve these features as they evolve and more people share their feedback."