After debuting late last year, OpenAI’s ChatGPT quickly became a hit with users who wanted to experience the wonders of A.I. In the months after, tech giants including Facebook parent Meta unveiled their chatbots.
But that’s not all that Meta has planned. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Meta is creating a product group that would integrate so-called generative A.I. into its various platforms and that it would be used to help create “personas” and “experiences.”
“We’re creating a new top-level product group at Meta focused on generative AI to turbocharge our work in this area,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post on Monday. “Over the longer term, we’ll focus on developing A.I. personas that can help people in a variety of ways.”
Zuckerberg gave vague examples of how the generative A.I. technology would be deployed across Meta properties WhatsApp, Messenger, or Instagram, alluding to experiences involving text, images, and video. He concluded the post by saying that there was a long way to go before getting to “really futuristic experiences.”
A Meta representative declined to offer any specifics.
The announcement could point to a broader strategy at Meta even as it continues to invest in the metaverse, a yet largely unrealized virtual world, despite the financial drain it has created. The social media giant has been trying to boost the presence of the virtual world, including through potential partnerships with Chinese tech companies.
During an earnings call earlier this month, Zuckerberg spoke about his decision to incorporate A.I. in more parts of the business.
“We are focused on efficiency and continuing to streamline the company as we can execute these priorities,” Zuckerberg said during the call. He said 2023 would be the “Year of Efficiency” through internal “flattening” and that managers and directors must become individual contributors or leave the company.
If Meta is serious about its A.I., it would have to compete with other tech companies that are building rival capabilities. The same day that Meta announced LLaMA, the name of its chatbot project, Snap said it would add an OpenAI-powered chatbot for its paying users.
