Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
TL;DR
- According to a new report, Google is working on an AI experiment that could let you chat with famous personalities.
- The project will also allow anyone to build their own chatbots, similar to services like Character.ai.
- The search giant may partner with YouTube influencers to create brand-specific AI personas.
Google is reportedly working on a new AI project that will let you converse with chatbots modeled after celebrities, YouTube influencers, or even fictional characters. According to The Information, Google plans to let anyone create their own chatbot by “describing its personality and appearance” and then converse with it — purely for entertainment.
This latest AI effort is notably distinct from Gems, which are essentially “customized versions of Gemini”. Put simply, Gems are similar to custom GPTs that can be taught to handle singular tasks like acting as a running coach or coding partner. On the other hand, Google’s upcoming chatbot project will fine-tune the Gemini family of language models to mimic or emulate the response style of specific people.
The search giant’s interest in personalized chatbots might suggest that it’s looking to take on Meta’s Celebrity AI chatbots. The latter already lets you talk to AI recreations of famous personalities like Snoop Dogg. Google’s upcoming product has also drawn comparisons to Character.ai, a chatbot service that offers a diverse range of personas ranging from TV characters to real-life politicians. Character.ai allows you to create your own personas with unique response styles that can be trained via text datasets.
Google’s customizable chatbot endeavor comes courtesy of the Labs team, which pivoted to working on various AI experiments last year. It’s being developed by a team of ten employees and led by long-time Google Doodle designer Ryan Germick.
As for monetization, the report suggests that Google may eventually integrate the project into YouTube rather than launching it as a standalone product. This would allow creators to create their own AI personas and potentially improve engagement with their audiences. YouTube’s most famous personality, MrBeast, already embodies an AI-powered chatbot on Meta’s platforms. While this approach may still not translate to a direct revenue stream, it could convince users to return to YouTube more often and offer creators better reach.
While a release date has yet to be finalized, the chatbot platform will likely make its way to the Google Labs page for testing first. The company is currently showing off over a dozen experimental tools and projects, with some like the controversial AI Overviews already integrated within mainline Google products.
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