Awkwafina, other celebs to voice Meta AI chatbot: report
By Bryan Ke
Awkwafina will reportedly lend her voice to Meta’s artificial intelligence assistant, Meta AI. A source familiar with the matter told Reuters that the company plans to announce the successful deal with Awkwafina and four other celebrities during its Connect conference, which begins on Wednesday.
- What to expect: News of celebrities lending their voices for Meta was first reported in August. Aside from Awkwafina’s, the new Meta AI feature will reportedly allow users to select from the voices of Kristen Bell, Keegan-Michael Key, Dame Judi Dench and John Cena. According to the source, the celebrity voices are expected to launch on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp sometime this week.
- How Meta does AI: The latest feature follows Meta’s unsuccessful attempt at launching a celebrity text-based chatbot in September. The company reportedly spent millions of dollars to create 28 AI avatars modeled after celebrities such as Naomi Osaka, Snoop Dogg and Kendall Jenner. However, the project was scrapped in less than a year due to low user engagement, such as the AI characters’ poor follower counts on Instagram. Subsequently, Meta created AI Studio, a platform allowing influencers to design their own AI avatars to interact with fans. “You can no longer interact with AI characters embodied by celebrities. We took a lot of learnings from building them. AI Studio [provides] a space for anyone to create their own AI,” the company explained.
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