What a shocker this is!

When Meta rolled out its celebrity-themed AI chatbots last September, I mentioned that it seemed more like a gimmick—one likely to spark initial interest, but not sustain it over time. 

Honestly, I'm not even sure they generated that initial excitement, but now, just months later, Meta has opted to phase out these celebrity AI chatbots, with several of them recently taken offline.

According to reports from The Information, Meta has decided to move forward, letting go of these bots for which it invested millions to create likenesses of stars like Kendall Jenner, Charli D’Amelio, Chris Paul, and others.

Your take on the situation with Meta's celebrity AI chatbots really highlights the disconnect between what users seek on social media and what Meta is trying to offer. The value of social platforms often lies in genuine human interaction, not in conversing with AI versions of celebrities. It seems like Meta might be misreading the room if they think users want that kind of experience.

Given your perspective, do you think there's a different kind of AI application that could align better with the social media ethos, or do you feel that AI doesn't have a place at all in these platforms?

I doubt that many users are going to want to chat with bots in the style of infuencers in the app, just as they weren’t enticed by celebrities, and I don’t see Meta’s Meta AI chatbot catching on in any significant way either.

But Meta’s investing billions in its next-level tech, and it really wants to get people using it.

I think that, eventually, they will, with new forms of creation in VR, but I don’t think that AI-based chatbots within social media apps are ever going to hit.