Meta unveils its personalized chatbots

On the occasion of the first in-person edition since 2019 of Connect – its annual event for developers – Meta presented its latest innovations on Wednesday September 27: personalized chatbots and new augmented and virtual reality devices.

Its boss Mark Zuckerberg unveiled “Meta AI”, a general chatbot, but also twenty-eight virtual characters, including “Becca, devoted mother to her doggie” or “Max, experienced sous chef”, created to interact with users. They will have their own profiles on Facebook and Instagram, should have voices by next year, and some are played by celebrities, like Paris Hilton (“Amber, expert detective in who did what”) or the YouTube star MrBeast (“Zach, the big brother who gently makes fun of you”).

Meta was eagerly awaited in terms of generative AI, which makes it possible to produce all kinds of content (texts, images, sounds, code, etc.) by simple query in everyday language. Its neighbors and competitors, OpenAI, Google and Microsoft in the lead, are engaged in a frantic race to deploy this type of tool, with chatbots and other creation support tools integrated into their online services and software.

But after the failure last November of the launch of Galactica (a language model of Meta, specialized in scientific research), the group changed tactics. It focused on the open source (free access to programming code) of its Llama 2 language model for researchers and developers, and on the use cases for users of its products.

AI “a little more fun” but “still very limited”

“Meta’s new chatbots will have many functions, including as specialized search tools”commented Yory Wurmser, an analyst from Insider Intelligence.

“This is our first attempt at training AIs that are a little more fun”said Mark Zuckerberg. “It’s the beginning, they are still very limited”he added, specifying that they do not currently have access to the internet in real time, unlike “Meta AI”.

The company also highlighted its automated image creation program, Emu, which will allow users to easily generate images on its various platforms and messaging services.

Generative AI is also taking up more and more space in virtual and augmented realities. It will thus make it possible to make more complex voice requests to connected glasses from Meta and Ray-Ban, the new model of which will be marketed from 300 dollars (approximately 285 euros) this fall. “Hey Meta, write me a funny caption for Instagram about my cat Adobo exercising”asked Li-Chen Miller, vice-president of the company, during a demonstration where she filmed her cat using the camera integrated into the glasses.

Pique against Apple

The American group also gave technical details on the Quest 3, its new mixed reality headset already presented last June. It will be sold from 500 dollars, for delivery from October 10. The Quest 3 “will have the best value for money on the market for a while”, launched Andrew Bosworth, technology director of Meta, to the laughter of the audience in Menlo Park, the group’s headquarters in Silicon Valley. Developers, analysts and journalists recognized this as a dig at Apple, which in June presented its first “mixed” reality headset (virtual and augmented), called “Vision Pro ». This will be sold starting at $3,500 early next year.

With its new devices that allow virtual experiences without being cut off from reality, Meta hopes to encourage more developers to create applications in the metaverse, and more consumers to discover these parallel universes.

“We are not focused on revenue at this stage”said Chris Cox. “Above all, we want to build a dynamic ecosystem”.

At the end of 2021, during the pandemic, Facebook became Meta with the idea of ​​becoming a metaverse company, described by Mark Zuckerberg as the future of the internet, after the web and mobile. But the road to augmented and virtual realities is strewn with pitfalls. The Californian group went through a difficult year in 2022, marked by the first drop in its advertising revenue since its IPO in 2012. And Facebook lost users, before regaining them.

The company, which had never launched a social plan in twenty years of existence, dismissed 11,000 people in November (13% of the workforce) and 10,000 last March. In this context, many investors and analysts take a dim view of spending on building virtual worlds. Reality Labs, the branch responsible for developing devices and applications for the Metaverse, lost $13.7 billion in 2022, and Meta expects a further hefty addition in 2023.