Meta to introduce celebrity voices for AI chatbot

New Delhi: According to reports, Facebook parent company Meta Platforms is set to announce this week that it has partnered with actors, including Judi Dench, Kristen Bell, and John Cena, to provide voices for its Meta AI chatbot.

The new audio feature will allow users to choose from a list of five celebrities, including Awkwafina and Keegan-Michael Key, as well as several generic voice options, for Meta's ChatGPT-like digital assistant. The social media giant is expected to unveil this feature at its annual Connect conference, which begins on Wednesday.

In addition to the celebrity voices, Meta is also anticipated to showcase a first version of its augmented-reality glasses at Connect and discuss its roadmap for other hardware devices, such as its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, which already feature an audio version of the Meta AI chatbot.

The celebrity voices will initially be available in the United States and other English-speaking markets across Meta's family of apps, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

Earlier this summer, a lot of reports suggested that Meta was in talks with celebrities to use their voices for AI projects. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently posted a promotional video on Instagram featuring Cena, showcasing the two men and others engaging in stunts while wearing Ray-Ban Meta glasses.

Meta has been actively developing generative artificial intelligence products to compete with Microsoft-backed ChatGPT maker OpenAI and Alphabet's Google. As part of this effort, the company has been enhancing its chatbot and integrating it more deeply into its apps.

OpenAI introduced a similar audio feature for its chatbot in May but faced criticism from actress Scarlett Johansson, who accused the company of creating a voice that sounded eerily similar to hers without her consent.

Meta's assistant currently supports text chats and image generation. The company previously experimented with celebrity-inspired "character" versions of the chatbot, but these did not gain significant traction.

Meta has since shifted its focus to an AI Studio product that allows content creators to create chatbot versions of themselves.