Meta moves on from its celebrity lookalike AI chatbots

The shutdown follows Meta’s Monday rollout of AI Studio, a tool that lets creators in the US make AI chatbots of themselves. Based on a statement, the company seems to be favoring this direction rather than the more handcrafted celebrity bots.

“You can no longer interact with AI characters embodied by celebrities,” Meta spokesperson Liz Sweeney says to The Verge. “We took a lot of learnings from building them and Meta AI to understand how people can use AIs to connect and create in unique ways. AI Studio is an evolution, creating a space for anyone including people, creators and celebrities to create their own AI.”

Meta’s initial list of chatbots included alternate personas for people like Charli D’Amelio (Coco, a “dance enthusiast”), Dwyane Wade (Victor, an “Ironman triathlete motivating you to be your best self”), and Paris Hilton (Amber, a “detective partner for solving whodunnits”). The company planned to add more, like chatbots based on Bear Grylls, Chloe Kim, and Josh Richards, but as pointed out by The Information, the company didn’t follow through. Meta paid some of the celebrities millions for their likenesses, The Information reported in October.

Even though these celebrity lookalike bots didn’t work out the way Meta may have hoped, the company sees a lot of promise for AI chatbots. CEO Mark Zuckerberg talked about chatbots a lot with The Verge’s Alex Heath in an interview last year. The company has also integrated its Meta AI assistant into Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.