Snapchat has joined the growing lists of companies adding AI chatbot powered by OpenAI GPT technology. The company has launched “My AI,” a new chatbot that runs the latest version of OpenAI’s GPT technology customized for its users. However, the experimental feature is only available to Snapchat+ users, Snapchat’s subscription service.
“Today we’re launching My AI, a new chatbot running the latest version of OpenAI’s GPT technology that we’ve customized for Snapchat. My AI is available as an experimental feature for Snapchat+ subscribers, rolling out this week,” Snapchat announced.
My AI can do many things including helping to answer trivia question or write a haiku. It was trained to have a unique voice and personality that works according to its values; which include “friendship, learning and fun.” However, My AI was also trained to abide by the app’s trust and safety policies.
“My AI can recommend birthday gift ideas for your BFF, plan a hiking trip for a long weekend, suggest a recipe for dinner, or even write a haiku about cheese for your cheddar-obsessed pal,” Snapchat wrote. “Make My AI your own by giving it a name and customizing the wallpaper for your Chat.”
Perhaps, I should add that Snapchat’s My AI is quite different from Microsoft’s vision with Bing—it is not designed to work as a search engine. It can however, be chatted with the same way you chat and engage a friend in conversation.
Earlier in February, Bloomberg reported that Snapchat+ has more than 2 million subscribers. An impressive figure, one that speaks volume of the hard work Snap has put in to making the product a success in the last couple of months.
Snapchat+ serves people exclusive content, and offers features that cannot be found in the regular Snapchat. Among other options, subscribers are able to customize the notification sound for each of their friends on the app, change the background in chats, and able to send messages to celebrities, and have such land at the top of their inboxes.
In the last couple of months, Snap’s main focus has been on scaling back on its operations and narrowing down on three of its priorities including; adding users and encouraging them to spend more time on the app, jump-starting revenue growth, and investing in augmented reality technology.
