In September 2023, Meta launched its Meta AI Assistant as well as a series of AI-powered chatbots that display different personalities based on celebrities such as Snoop Dogg, who agreed to use his voice and likeness in the feature.
According to multiple people familiar with the matter, the so-called AI characters were developed after Zuckerberg noted the success of AI companion start-up Character AI, especially with younger users.
Meta later introduced an “AI Studio”, which allows users to create their own AI characters, or creators to create AI versions of themselves to chat with fans.
However, amid concerns from the public and regulators over child safety, Persona efforts faced controversy last year after reports that users were generating highly sexualized characters. Since January, Meta has restricted teens’ access to its AI characters.
Meta’s newly formed Superintelligence Labs has discovered a new group of characters, according to people familiar with the matter.
The company has focused in part on creating photorealistic avatars of virtual AI characters, the four people said. But scaling up the effort has been difficult because the technology requires a lot of computing power to achieve realism and avoid lag in interactions with users.
Meta is also working on improving voice interactions with characters. Last year, it acquired two voice companies, PlayAI and WaveForms.
Zuckerberg’s character will be trained on images of the chief executive as well as his voice, one person said. If the experiment is successful, influencers and creators may one day be able to do the same, the person said.
Meta is inspiring employees to use AI technology internally to streamline processes and become more efficient. Employees are being encouraged to use agentic tools from open source software OpenClaw and design their own agents to automate tasks.
Product managers are being invited to conduct AI-focused “skills grounding exercises,” according to multiple people familiar with the matter. It also includes a technical system design test, as well as an exercise in “vibe coding”.
Some employees fear that this could lead to job cuts. Meta stated that this exercise was not mandatory and was designed to establish where product managers may need additional training and development.
Additional reporting by Christina Criddle in San Francisco
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