Snapchat is taking its AI-powered chatbot global

20 Apr 2023

Image: © HTGanzo/Stock.adobe.com

The social media platform is making its chatbot free for all users, along with new ways to customise and interact with My AI.

Snapchat has announced a global roll-out of My AI, its chatbot powered by OpenAI technology, along with a batch of new features.

The ChatGPT-powered creation was launched in February for subscribers of the premium service Snapchat+. But now, the AI system is being made available for free to all Snapchat users.

Snap, the company that owns the platform, revealed the planned updates for My AI, including the ability to personalise the chatbot. The company said the AI model has thousands of “unique Bitmoji variations” that can be easily customised by each user.

My AI is also getting integrated further into Snapchat, with the ability to bring the chatbot into conversations with other users. This lets users ask the chatbot a question in a group, with the answer being provided to the whole group.

Like many AI chatbots, My AI also offers recommendations for users based on their queries, such as suggestions for weekend activities.

Users are also able to send snaps – or images – to My AI. The company also plans to give the AI chatbot the ability to send “unique generative” snaps back to users with premium subscriptions.

In terms of safety, Snap said it is working to improve the AI chatbot by making it take the age of users into consideration when responding and adding “moderation technology”.

Snap said this feature will assess the severity of potentially harmful content and temporarily restrict user access to the chatbot if they misuse the service.

“My AI is far from perfect, but we’ve made a lot of progress,” Snap said in a blog post. “For example, 99.5pc percent of My AI responses conform to our community guidelines.”

Snap is just one of a large batch of tech companies working to bring generative AI into their products and services. MicrosoftGoogle and Spotify all announced their own AI features earlier this year, as the interest and popularity of the technology continues to grow.

But the technology behind My AI, ChatGPT, is currently facing regulatory scrutiny. The AI chatbot was banned in Italy due to alleged privacy violations, while the EU’s key GDPR regulator has created a dedicated task force on ChatGPT.

Italy’s data protection watchdog may end the ChatGPT ban at the end of April if its creator, OpenAI, takes steps to address the agency’s concerns, Reuters reports.

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Leigh Mc Gowran is a journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com