Meta announces next project, ‘AI personas’ for Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp

Meta has just announced it is developing AI personas that can help WhatsApp, Instagram, and Messenger’s users in a variety of ways. The company’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, said in a Facebook post that its next project will be to focus on generative AI by “exploring experiences with text (like chat in WhatsApp and Messenger), with images (like creative Instagram filters and ad formats), and with video and multi-modal experiences.” With this move, Meta has joined the likes of Google, Microsoft, SnapChat, and others in supporting ChatGPT-style AI.

We may start to see sophisticated new chatting options in Facebook’s Messenger and WhatsApp, or innovative new filters and promotions on Instagram. Zuckerberg asserts that video and “multi-modal” content could be affected. We can expect to see more emphasis placed on creative and expressive tools in the near future.

Zuckerberg says that the company is combining its teams working on generative artificial intelligence into a single group to “turbocharge” its operations in the growing field of AI. He is cryptic and warns that “a lot of foundational work to do” is needed before the most advanced projects can be realised.

Meta had, in the past, incorporated AI into its products. In 2016, for instance, it added chatbots to Messenger. But this is a big step forward, especially since artificial intelligence is becoming more and more important.

It has been reported that OpenAI’s ChatGPT is a competitive threat to internet giants like Google because it has the potential to dramatically change the way people do search and even the self-publishing business.

Recently, a New York-based salesman, was reported to have created a 30-page illustrated children’s e-book using ChatGPT. He used text prompts to have the software generate story blocks, and OpenAI’s Dalle2 (an AI-powered text-to-image generator) to produce caricatures and illustrations for the story book, “The Wise Little Squirrel: A Tale of Saving and Investing‘ now available in the Amazon Kindle store for $9.99 (paperback) and $2.99 (e-book).

This transition could be a game changer for the company that has lost billions of dollars in its metaverse project, and as a result couldn’t continue paying the salaries of over 11,000 workers it laid off last year.

By integrating AI into more of its products, Meta hopes to see more usage of its products and features, leading to more ad views and revenue. Product personalisation can improve the relevance of content and ads, leading to higher click-through rates and increased revenue per user. In turn, this can help the company better understand user behaviour and interests and serve more relevant ads.