Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday that the company is initiating trials to showcase AI characters created by users through Meta AI Studio on Instagram. The initial testing phase will commence in the United States.
This announcement coincides with a16z-backed chatbot company Character.AI’s launch, enabling users to engage with AI avatars via calls.
Zuckerberg emphasized in a broadcast channel post that these chatbots will be clearly labeled as AI to ensure user awareness.
“We are beginning an early test in the U.S. of our AI studio, so in the coming weeks, you may encounter AIs from your favorite creators and interest-based AIs primarily in messaging, distinctly identified as AI,” he stated.
Acknowledging the preliminary nature of these AI developments, Zuckerberg added, “This is the first beta version of these AIs, and we will continue refining them to make them more widely available soon.”
Zuckerberg highlighted collaborations with creators such as meme account Wasted and technology creator Don Allen Stevenson III for early versions of creator-built chatbots.
In an interview shared on social channels, Zuckerberg elaborated on AI avatars’ potential applications, envisioning APIs tailored to diverse user interests. “Our approach involves empowering every creator and eventually every small business on the platform to create their own AI for community interaction, including customer engagement for businesses,” he explained.
Creators may leverage AI to engage with fans when they cannot personally respond to all messages.
Zuckerberg acknowledged the evolving nature of AI avatars, describing their development as an evolving “art form” that will improve over time. “The most engaging, entertaining, and trust-building formula for this is yet to be determined,” he noted. “Our goal is to provide tools for experimentation to discover what works best.”
Meta plans to initially test the feature with approximately 50 creators and a small user subset, gradually expanding availability over the next few months with a full launch targeted by August.
Last year, Meta introduced its AI Studio at its developer conference to facilitate custom chatbot creation by businesses.
Additional reporting by Sarah Perez.
