Last year, Meta announced the new AI Studio feature and revealed its plans to roll out the feature for WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook users. Recently, Meta also started testing the feature. Meta did not share the timeline of the rollout, but it seems like the social media company is already making the feature available for some Instagram users. Meta says that the AI ​​Studio feature is now available for creators in the US. According to reports, the feature will not be exclusive to creators but will eventually be rolled out to all users.

The AI ​​Studio will allow all users to create custom AI characters that will be able to chat on specific topics, create memes, or offer advice. These chatbots will be powered by Meta’s new Llama 3.1 model. Users can share their creations and monitor how many people are interacting with them, although they will not have access to see the conversations other users have had with their chatbots.

There is no news on when this feature will be available to creators and other users in India.

What is Meta AI Studio?

Meta’s AI Studio feature will essentially allow users – specifically creators – to create their own AI avatars that will be able to answer their questions like a chatbot (think: a personal chatbot), and it will even talk to other people in their DMs on their behalf. Imagine this: if you DM a US-based creator on Instagram, chances are you’ll soon be chatting with their AI doppelganger.

The idea behind the AI ​​Studio feature and the customized chatbot is to tackle a frequent challenge Instagram users face, especially those with a large number of followers: managing the massive influx of messages that come in daily. Connor Hayes, vice president of product for Meta’s AI Studio, told Engadget that these AIs are designed to act as “extensions of ourselves.” In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg also shared his ambitions about the AI ​​Studio feature. He predicted that Meta’s apps would eventually host “hundreds of millions” of creator-built AIs.

AI Chatbots and Celebrities

This feature comes after Meta experimented with celebrity AI chatbots for a while, where the chatbot would behave like a particular celebrity or influencer and interact with the user. Meta’s AI chatbots can adopt the personalities of celebrities like Tom Brady and Snoop Dogg. However, this feature did not work very well. But despite Meta’s disappointing experience with this feature, Google is also trying to achieve the same with Gemini.

Google is developing AI chatbots based on celebrities and YouTube influencers. The tool will enable users to interact with the chatbot as if they were talking to a celebrity, powered by Gemini LLM. Apart from embodying the personality of the celebrity, the chatbot will also allow users to create personalized chatbots by customizing their traits and appearance, just like Character.ai.