Snapchat, the popular social media app, has recently announced that its AI chatbot, called My AI, is now available to all users for free. The chatbot, which is powered by ChatGPT, a viral AI chatbot that can generate original texts in response to user prompts, was previously only accessible to paying Snapchat Plus subscribers.
My AI is designed to be a personal sidekick to each Snapchatter who chats with it. It can offer recommendations, answer questions, help users make plans, and even write a haiku. Users can also customize My AI’s name and avatar, and bring it into conversations with friends by mentioning it with “@MyAI”.
My AI is also becoming a more integral part of Snapchat. It can now recommend AR filters to use in Snapchat’s camera or places to visit from the app’s map tab. It can also be added to group chats by mentioning it with an @ symbol. Snap plans to soon let people visually message My AI and receive generated responses; an example shown during the company’s annual conference showed a photo of tomatoes in a garden, prompting the bot to respond with a generated image of gazpacho soup.
Snapchat’s CEO Evan Spiegel sees My AI as “an awesome creative tool” that can create more engaging and immersive experiences for its users. He also believes that generative AI bots are more suited to creative tasks than factual ones. He says that Snap is working closely with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, to bring My AI to Snapchatters.
However, My AI also comes with some challenges and risks, such as ensuring the accuracy and appropriateness of the AI-generated content. Snap advises users not to use My AI for political, sexual, harassing, or deceptive content, or content that violates its community guidelines. Users can also send feedback to Snap by long pressing on any response from My AI to share their opinions.
My AI is part of Snapchat’s vision to leverage AI and AR to create more engaging and immersive experiences for its users. It also reflects the growing trend of using AI chatbots for various purposes across different apps and platforms.
