The company also finally unveiled a generative AI chatbot product to match OpenAI’s chatGPT and Google’s Bard, but it’s taking a more personal approach. Meta has created 28 AI agents with specialised personalities and specialities, including a cooking coach and a creative writer, which you can interact with on social media and chat apps as though they’re real people. Each one is portrayed in their profile pictures by an actor or celebrity, including Snoop Dogg and Matildas captain Sam Kerr.
New generative AI features are coming to Instagram.
It also has a less colourful agent called Meta AI, which can access real-time web information via Microsoft Bing, though it said this feature is for the US only. The chatbots are currently in beta, and Zuckerberg stressed that Meta will have ethical safeguards in place before full launch.
Eventually, Meta plans to allow creators and businesses to develop their own AI chatbots, with a product it calls AI studio, to interact with fans or provide chat support to customers.
The company also unveiled its text-to-image engine Emu, which it said can create images based on a few words of input within a few seconds. It’s rolling out a new feature using the technology across its chat apps, which lets users create new stickers on the fly by describing what they want. And new Instagram features coming soon will allow users to create filters or replace their photos background with text descriptions too.
Lastly, Meta showed off a new pair of glasses in partnership with Ray-Ban, which will have Meta AI built in. The smart glasses have a 12MP camera, an array of five microphones, a pair of speakers, 32GB of storage and come with a charging case that can keep them going for a total of 36 hours before needing to plug in.
When paired with your phone the glasses can play audio and make calls, while they can also take photos and videos. If users start a livestream from their phone, they can switch to their glasses view at any time so viewers can see what they’re seeing. Wearers can also talk to the Meta AI, for example asking to take a photo and message it to a friend without needing to use their phone.
The Ray-Ban and Meta Smart Glasses work with tinted or prescription lenses.
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In a future update, Meta said the AI will have access to the camera and microphone feed so users can ask it about what they see and hear. This could include identifying landmarks, or reading signs written in an unfamiliar language.
The glasses have a large blinking light on the front to let other people know if the wearer is capturing pictures or video, and come in black or a selection of semi-transparent colours. They can be configured with coloured, prescription or transitions lenses and in Australia will start at $450 when they go on sale on October 17.
The author travelled to California as a guest of Meta.
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