In late September Meta highlighted their AI innovations at 2023 Meta Connect, where they highlighted their AI-powered chatbots, AI-generated imagery, and virtual reality tools. In this blog, we’ll be exploring the Meta AI chatbot further.
Another AI-Powered Chatbot
I wrote an article not too long ago about how Snapchat was the first social media platform to utilize AI-powered chatbots. It’s no surprise that the master of copycats (borrowed that catchy phrase from Emily J) released theirs not too soon after. Let’s take a look at Meta’s AI Assistant,
Meta’s AI assistant is appropriately named Meta AI and it was the main headliner during the Meta Connect 2023 conference. Meta described it as a new assistant that users can interact with on WhatApp, Messenger, Instagram and eventually on their Ray- Ban Meta smart glasses.
Source: Meta
Another AI-Powered Chatbot
Just like Snapchat’s My AI, you can ask Meta AI to provide recommendations for a variety of different topics such as recipes and where to hike. Another similarity between the chatbots is that it can update their responses based on new information. Unlike Snapchat, Meta AI has 28 different AI-personas that can communicate, give recommendations, and answer questions to users across different interests.
Mark Zuckerburg showed how a few of these personas work. He asked AI Persona, Max, for kid-friendly dinner ideas. Max is a sous-chef whose likeness is based on Roy Choi. If you don’t know who Roy Choi is, I’m going to need you to look this American chef up (after you finish this article, of course). He is credited as one of the founders of the gourmet food truck movement.
Now let’s say Max gives you the recipe to make mac and cheese balls but your cheese sauce comes out too salty. Max (Meta AI) can luckily help you balance your flavors.
If food isn’t your jam (bud dum tss), there are other AIs with different interests and specialties. What if you wanna get in shape? AI Persona, Victor can help you come up with a work out plan and can assist you whenever you’re ready. No matter what, Victor will always be encouraging you to hit your goals.
Out of the Meta AIs you can chat with, my favorite has to be the Dungeon Master, who is played by none other than Snoop Dogg. You will be playing a “choose your own adventure’ style of game and the Dungeon Master will give you open-ended questions that will impact your unique story.
Source: Meta
New Chatbot Who ‘Dis?
Like I said earlier, there are 28 different AI-personas. Currently the AIs are able to have visual reactions/animations based on their responses in-real-time. Zuckerburg said that voice sounds should be coming in the next few months.
Source: Meta
Besides Roy Choi, Dwayne Wade, and Snoop Dog, other celebrity AI-personas include: Mr. Beast, Paris Hilton, Charlie D’Amelio, Laura DIY, Naomi Osaka and more. Each of these persona’s have their own Facebook and Instagram pages.
How Do I Get Access to Meta AI?
To see if you can get access, start a new chat with any of the AI personas in Instagram, Messenger, or WhatsApp. You can do this by searching for the AI’s persona in messages or by clicking the message button on the persona’s profile pages.
Source: Meta
My Predictions of Future Advertising Opportunities
As of the publication of this article, Meta AI is still in Beta testing and advertising capabilities have not been announced yet.
Even though there aren't any advertising opportunities yet, a unique trait about AI-powered chatbots is that you can capture your audience during their intent stage, which means they can have higher probability of converting.
Here are some examples of I think Meta AI’s advertising will look like:
Retail
Let’s say you’re doing a home workout with Angie, the workout queen AI. She recommends getting resistance bands to help tone your arms, but you tell her you don’t have resistance bands at home.
Meta could integrate shopping feed ads (which are available in Ads Manager) into their AI assistants. Angie could say something like, “That’s no problem, here are some resistance bands from [insert brand here]. There’s a store located 1.5 miles away from you and on sale for 20% off.”
Travel
Another example is if you’re looking for family vacation ideas in Colorado from Lorena, the travel expert. Meta’s AI could recommend visiting Breckenridge for fun snow activities like skiing, snowboarding, and more. This would be a good opportunity for a travel ad for flight deals or hotel stay packages.
In my opinion, e-commerce and purchase conversions are the most obvious way to utilize Meta AI, but what if you are trying to optimize for other conversion events?
Events
Let’s say your company is running a comic-con or anime convention and pre-sale tickets are sold out. You can find an opportunity to drive traffic to your event with Meta AI. If users are geeking out with Tameka over the latest ‘One Piece’ trailer, she could recommend your convention to users that are within 40 miles of the event and call out some attractive value props such as guests, cosplay contests, and industry panels.
How Does It Compare to Snapchat’s My AI
It’s pretty easy to want to compare to Snpachat’s My AI and Meta AI’s chatbots, so let’s look at what makes them tick.
What Powers the Chatbot?
Both chatbots are powered by LLM’s (language learning models), Snapchat My AI is powered by ChatGPT4 and Meta AI is powered by Llama 2. Both LLM’s are open source but ChatGPT was created by OpenAI and Llama 2 was developed by Meta.
Meta AI Will Have More Up-to-Date Answers
In late September, Microsoft announced that it expanded its AI partnership with Meta. What does this mean for users? Microsoft is working to integrate Bing into Meta AI chat experiences. As a result, responses will have access to real-time search information and this connection will be available on Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.
Currently, ChatGPT doesn’t have information beyond September 2021. However, OpenAI announced that the LLM itself was updated on September 8, 2023.
Where are the Chatbots Available?
Like I said before, Meta AI is still in beta testing and isn’t available to all users. Snapchat’s My AI is available for all Snapchat users.
Another aspect that sets Meta apart from Snapchat is that Meta AI is available on mobile and desktop across three different messaging applications while Snapchat’s My AI is only available on Snapchat mobile.
Customization
Snapchat users can customize the appearance of their AI that has a wide variety of interest and knowledge, but Meta users have 28 different AI’s to talk to with very distinct personality, interests, and knowledge.
Which One Should I Use?
It really depends on which one fits your needs. For example, Meta may have 28 different personas but there is a chance that the current personas may not fit with your needs so it may be more beneficial to go with Snapchat’s My AI because it’s a neutral persona.
So until next time, have fun chatting it up and let’s see how bad Naomi Osaka’s likeness will roast me for liking dubs.
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