Google may be working on developing artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots that will play characters while interacting with users. According to the report, the character-focused chatbots can be modeled after celebrities or customized by users based on their imagination. These chatbots are said to be powered by the tech giant's in-house large language model (LLM) Gemini. Unlike existing Gemini AI chatbots, these customizable bots are said to be designed to have conversations with users and not just answer their questions.
Google is developing a text-based AI chatbot
According to a report from The Information (via 9to5Google), Google wants to build AI-based chatbots that can be people's friends, rather than assistants that solve their questions. The publication says the company has been working on building these chatbots for a while. These will be customizable AI bots that “can be modeled after celebrities or created by users.”
The report also highlights the possibility of Google partnering with social media influencers to create chatbots based on their personalities. These bots are said to be run by Gemini, though it is unclear at this time whether they will use Gemini 1.5 Pro or the Gemini 1.0 model. This is said to be a standalone project and is not being developed for any specific Google platform.
However, the report highlights that the company is discussing plans to eventually integrate the chatbot into YouTube.
Based on details shared in the report, it seems that these chatbots may be similar to the AI characters created by Meta. The social media giant has partnered with popular influencers and celebrities, including Kendall Jenner, Charli D'Amelio, Mr. Beast, Snoop Dogg, and Tom Brady, to release their AI characters on its Messenger app. Similar chatbots are also used by the recently launched social media platform Butterflies.
Character-based chatbots were popularized by AI platform Character.ai, which allows users to create AI bots by adding characters and text prompts that describe their personality. The platform allows users to interact with characters such as Sherlock Holmes, Tony Stark, Elon Musk, Batman, and more.
Apart from these, the platform also offers chatbots made for specific purposes such as writing helper, story maker, dating coach, etc. Notably, Character.ai uses Google cloud services and Tensor Processing Units (TPUs) to train its AI models.
