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- Snapchat is launching its own ChatGPT-powered chatbot called My AI starting this week.
- My AI is trained with a "unique tone and personality" and designed to avoid bias, per Snap.
- A spokesperson said that its AI launch is part of an effort to attract users to the social media app.
Snapchat is launching its own AI chatbot called My AI, which will be powered by OpenAI's ChatGPT.
Starting this week, Snapchat users will have access to its new conversational chatbot, which can write haikus, plan a hiking trip, and recommend birthday gifts, according to a Snap blog post.
At the moment, the feature will only be available to paying Snapchat+ subscribers, but the platform plans on making the chatbot accessible to all its users in the future, Snap CEO of Evan Spiegel told The Verge.
"The big idea is that in addition to talking to our friends and family every day, we're going to talk to AI every day," Spiegel told The Verge. "This is something we're well positioned to do as a messaging service."
The move comes as tech companies like Meta, Microsoft, and Google are racing to build AI models.
My AI is more limited than the existing ChatGPT. It is "designed to avoid biased, incorrect, harmful, or misleading information," according to Snap's blog post, though "mistakes can occur."
Snap warns users to "not rely on it for advice" as "My AI is prone to hallucination and can be tricked into saying just about anything," per its blog post. When a reporter at The Verge prompted My AI to write academic essays, the chatbot reportedly refused.
"My AI was trained to have a unique tone and personality that plays into Snapchat's core values around friendship, learning, and fun," a Snapchat spokesperson told Insider.
Users can give the chatbot a name and select a chat wallpaper, per Snap. It even comes with its own alien Bitmoji, per The Verge.
Snapchat's hopes its new AI feature will help keep it financially afloat as the company struggles to grow its user base and generate revenue. Snap expected 375.3 million global daily active users last quarter, but it only recorded 373 million, according to its latest earnings report. The company's stock dropped 11% after the results were announced.
"Incorporating this technology into Snapchat's messaging platform has the potential to make these interactions with AI part of what draws our community to Snapchat," a spokesperson said.