Instagram working on a customisable ‘AI friend’ feature

Instagram is reportedly working on artificial intelligence-powered ‘friend’ feature that users can customise to their liking and then speak to, according to screenshots shared by developer Alessandro Paluzzi.

Users could soon be able to create an AI companion of whatever race, gender, age, and personality they want, and they’ll be able to set specific interests to engage in conversation.

Personality options include reserved, creative, enthusiastic, witty, pragmatic, and empowering, and according to the screenshots, the personality will “inform the tone of your custom AI’s speech’.

Users can also create a unique name of their choosing and an avatar created through image-generating AI.

Options for interests for the AI include DIY, animals, career, education, entertainment, music, and nature, and the choice will “inform its personality and the nature of its conversations”.

Once the AI ‘friend’ has been created, users will be taken to a chat window where they can click a button to start conversing with the AI.

While Instagram owner Meta Platform has been pushing heavily into AI, it has been relatively quiet regarding AI features for Instagram.

However, according to an Instagram help page, the platform’s mobile apps already include the option to chat with AI.

To start an AI chat, users can navigate to their DMs and select the icon to create a new message.

Instagram notes that the feature isn’t available to everyone, and those with access will see the option to Create an AI chat.

We checked to see if we had access to the AI chat feature, but it appears as though South Africa doesn’t have access as it wasn’t available on an Android or an iOS device.