Meta intends to fill Facebook with AI-generated characters that behave much like user accounts, according to comments from a company product executive reported by the Financial Times. The characters would be built by users through Meta's AI Studio and could interact with people in ways that resemble human contact on the platform.
"We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do," Connor Hayes, Meta's vice-president of product for generative AI, told the FT. "They'll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform… that's where we see all of this going," he said.
AI characters are not new to Meta. The company has spent the past year adding generative AI features to its existing products, including the summer release of AI Studio, which the FT reports quickly drew users creating virtual boyfriends and girlfriends. Hayes said the service already hosts hundreds of thousands of AI characters.
Expansion Beyond the US and a Two-Year Priority
Meta plans to expand access to AI Studio to more countries outside the United States, and making interactions with AI more social is described as a "priority" for the company over the next two years, according to the FT. Beyond fictional characters, AI Studio lets Facebook and Instagram influencers create AI versions of themselves that followers can talk to. Other platforms have released creator-oriented AI features, including Snapchat's AI video generation tool, the FT reported.
Safety and Trust Warnings
Becky Owen, chief marketing officer at talent agency Billion Dollar Boy and a former head of Meta's creator innovations team, told the FT that without robust safeguards, platforms risk amplifying false narratives through AI-driven accounts. She also argued the approach could backfire on human creators because low-quality AI personas could undermine their craft. "Unlike human creators, these AI personas don't have lived experiences, emotions, or the same capacity for relatability," Owen said.
The FT report also points to broader concerns about misinformation. It cites Futurism's coverage of similar chatbots on Character.AI that repeatedly broke guardrails and exposed underage teenage users to inappropriate content, and notes that AI-generated material already circulating on Facebook illustrates the difficulty of containing fabricated content. Meta has not announced specific safeguards for the expanded AI characters, and the FT report does not detail how the company would verify or label them.
Editorial Notes