Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Meta is betting that characters generated by artificial intelligence will fill its social media platforms in the next few years as it looks to the fast-developing technology to drive engagement with its 3bn users.
The Silicon Valley group is rolling out a range of AI products, including one that helps users create AI characters on Instagram and Facebook, as it battles with rival tech groups to attract and retain a younger audience.
“We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do,” said Connor Hayes, vice-president of product for generative AI at Meta.
“They’ll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform . . . that’s where we see all of this going,” he added.
Hayes said a “priority” for Meta over the next two years was to make its apps “more entertaining and engaging”, which included considering how to make the interaction with AI more social.
He said hundreds of thousands of characters have already been created using its AI character tool — which launched in the US in July, with plans to expand its access in the future — but most users have kept them private so far.
Meanwhile, the majority of creators are at present using Meta’s AI tools to make their real-world content look better, such as editing photos.
The push comes as social media companies have been racing to release the latest generative AI technology into products as a way of attracting new users and more content to their platforms.
In September, Snapchat rolled out generative AI tools to help so-called creators, people who earn revenue from posting content online, design 3D characters for its augmented reality experiences. It has seen an increase in its users viewing AI lenses by more than 50 per cent each year.
ByteDance-owned TikTok is piloting a suite of products called Symphony, which enables brands and creators to use AI for advertising. This includes creating videos for products using text prompts, AI-generated avatars and translating content into different languages.
Meta has also introduced a tool for users to create AI assistants that can respond to questions from their followers. Next year it plans to release its text-to-video generation software to creators, allowing them to put themselves into AI-generated videos.
Meta’s chief Mark Zuckerberg has previously demonstrated the ability to conduct live video calls with a creator’s AI avatar that could converse in their style. Creators can shape the system to avoid certain topics, or choose topics to promote.
But experts warn that AI-generated content brings risks such as the potential for these characters to be “weaponised” for spreading misinformation.
“Without robust safeguards, platforms risk amplifying false narratives through these AI-driven accounts,” said Becky Owen, global chief marketing and innovation officer at creative agency Billion Dollar Boy and former head of Meta’s creator innovations team.
To address concerns, Meta’s rules state that AI-generated content should be labelled clearly on its platforms.
Owen noted that while AI characters could be a “creative new entertainment format”, there was a risk that they might flood platforms with low-quality material that undermines creators’ craft as well as erode confidence among users.
“Unlike human creators, these AI personas don’t have lived experiences, emotions, or the same capacity for relatability,” she added.
