Snapchat is making its AI chatbot “My AI” available to all
users for free, after keeping it accessible to only paid subscribers for two
months.
Snapchat’s chatbot can be customized by changing its name,
looks, and adding a Bitmoji avatar - which is what users demanded the most after
the integration first rolled out. My AI can also be added to group chats using “@.” You
can ask the chatbot for AR filter recommendations, as well as places to visit from
Snapchat’s map tab.
In the near future, Snapchat also plans to equip My AI with the ability to provide responses to visual messages / images.
Snap’s CEO Evan Spiegel views AI chatbot as an “awesome
creative tool” and he describes the company’s relationship with OpenAI as a
“close partnership.” While users have had some negative experiences with
My AI, Spiegel is focusing on and taking pride in positive interactions with
the technology that people have mostly experienced.
Snap also added some safety enhancements to the chatbot six weeks after its release, although it found that only “0.01% of My AI’s responses were deemed non-conforming,” such as containing inappropriate words in response to questions. The safety enhancement also includes age appropriateness. For instance, the chatbot is capable of taking a user’s age into consideration when generating answers, even if the user hasn’t revealed their age to the bot.
