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In a recent New York Times article, Instagram announced a plan to create artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots that are based on popular social media influencers. While only in the early stages of production, the goal would be to create a way for popular influencers to “interact” with their fans by training a chatbot on their posts to respond in ways that would feel authentic to the creator.
Based on the details shared with The New York Times, the end goal is to give creators with large followings the ability to better connect with fans without having to personally respond to overwhelmingly large numbers of messages and comments. Creators can select the data Instagram’s parent company (Meta) uses to copy the way they speak—including their previous Instagram posts, direct messages, comments, audio from Reels and Instagram Stories, as well as dictate responses for specific questions.
This latest instance joins the growing number of chatbots that are emerging with new AI initiatives. And while most examples people think of are generative AI-driven, there are several corporations that are utilizing chatbots for customer interaction.
The real question, though, is what exactly is a “chatbot”?
As with all AI tools, chatbots provide an opportunity for a variety of businesses to interact with consumers—whether that is to help them find a particular product, give information via an interactive Q&A/About Us page, or to promote a personal brand through social media. The other side of this technological coin is that we can’t expect to have AI replace human experts. Chatbots can do a great job at basic interactions, but are far from perfect and have similar issues to other AI technologies like hallucinations and misinformation. While celebrities like Mr. Beast or the Kardashians might benefit from having an AI chatbot pretend to be them on Instagram, the generated responses will be only imitations that could lack the essence of what draws their fans to interact with them in the first place.
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