Snap is making its A.I. chatbot available to all users, less than two months after introducing it as a premium feature for paying subscribers, the company said on Wednesday.
The bot, known as My AI, is powered by OpenAIs ChatGPT and acts as a social companion and knowledge storehouse for Snap users.
With My AI were making conversational artificial intelligence useful and enjoyable for our community while also working to establish guardrails to help keep our community safe, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel said during a keynote address at the Snap Partner Summit in Los Angeles on Wednesday.
My AI, a purple-skin avatar (that can be altered to blue, green, pink or green skins), can do things like suggest jokes to tell friends based on contextual evidence, recommend local activities and plug Snapchat lenses for photos and video content. For paying Snapchat Plus subscribers, My AI can also respond to users Snaps with its own AI-generated images. For all users it will be very prominent in the app: pinned in the chat tab, above conversations with friends.
In February, Snap first made My AI available to subscribers of Snapchat Plus, the companys premium offering, which costs $3.99 per month. Because My AI is powered by OpenAIs ChatGPT at the time of launch, the bot existed as a more restricted version of ChatGPT. This is because the bot is designed to adhere to Snapchats trust and safety guidelines, as reported by the Verge. The implication is that it wont write essays or answer sexually explicit questions, especially important as 90% of Americans age 13 to 24 are Snapchat users.
The announcement comes as social media companies make a mad dash into AI. Salespeople at Meta have reportedly stopped pitching the metaverse and are instead brandishing the companys AI-powered ad tools, according to the Information. TikTok, of course, powers its viral For You algorithm with artificial intelligence. YouTube is rolling out AI-based tools to lure video creators, while Google parent CEO Sundar Pichai has called for regulation in the space.
At the Partner Summit, Snap also announced a major push into creators and creator monetization as well as new augmented reality technology, communities and map capabilities.
