Superchat’s new AI chatbot lets you message historical and fictional characters via ChatGPT

Image credit: Gorilla Technologies

The company behind popular iPhone personalization app Brass, sticker maker StickerHub and more today announced a new AI chat app called Superchat that allows iOS users to chat with virtual characters powered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT. However, what makes this app different from the default His ChatGPT experience and from the dozens of popular AI chat apps currently available is the characters provided that can be used to manipulate his AI features in Superchat.

Characters include notable historical figures such as Shakespeare, Albert Einstein, Cleopatra, and Neil Armstrong, as well as public domain works, classic stories, or fairy tale figures such as Snow White, Medusa, and Sherlock Holmes; It includes persons representing various professions such as: gardener, chef, or therapist.

A company called Gorilla Technologies also creates its own characters, such as Aria, the standard ChatGPT assistant. This chatbot can help users with everyday tasks such as writing emails or marketing expertise.

Gorilla Technologies CEO Guglielmo Faglioni said: “And I think this app will be a great tool for kids who want to learn more about historical figures by chatting with cool characters like Shakespeare.”

The app itself is structured like a messaging app, allowing users to have multiple conversations with different AI chatbots at the same time. The AI ​​itself is said to be powered using OpenAI technology, specifically GPT-3.5-turbo. Meanwhile, the character artwork was created using his Midjourney.

Many characters are available for free with app downloads, while others can be unlocked through a premium subscription. Considering that, it’s pretty expensive. The cheapest plan for the app is $1.35 per week if you opt for a yearly subscription (~$70/year). The latter is a price designed to capture people who want to tinker with the app for a week and then cancel, rather than those who want to commit to a one-year contract up front.

The pricing is meant to help cover the cost of using OpenAI’s API, and the company supports Family Sharing, so an entire family with multiple users can share one subscription. said.

Still, it’s an interesting concept to put a face on an AI and have it interact with that character’s style.

That said, the characters themselves could use a bit more composition.In addition to introducing themselves as the character or persona in question, subsequent interactions invoke speech patterns to sound like the character they represent. For example, you might expect Dracula to interrupt the conversation buhahaha, but instead he responded like any other AI chatbot. Other characters did a little better. For example, Zeus, after being asked scientific questions about the topic, he explained how lightning works in nature, and then told me how he had the power to create lightning himself. I was.

However, the characters seem to be aware of their own history and include it in their dialogue, though the way they speak is more like a typical AI.

As a result, Superchat doesn’t compare to the experience offered by rival Poe, Quora’s chatbot app, which allows users to create their own bots with prompts. Although not limited to character creation, this feature has been used to create things like pirate chatbots that actually respond like pirates using language like: “Avast, scurvy dog! What do you want? “How can I help you?””

The company says they are working on making the characters’ speaking styles more in line with their personas.

Gorilla Technologies isn’t the only company looking to combine AI with characters and avatars these days.

Last fall, Google acquired AI avatar startup Alter for $100 million, and South Korean startup Neosapience raised $12.5 million for Typecast, a synthetic voice and video platform that lets users convert text to video. But D-ID is working closer to what Superchat is trying to do with OpenAI’s new technology that gives his ChatGPT both a face and a voice. However, his web app is much more advanced, allowing users to actually have face-to-face conversations with photorealistic AI.

Meta also said it’s experimenting with AI chat on Messenger and WhatsApp, and Discord today offers a bot with ChatGPT-like functionality.

Superchat isn’t necessarily trying to invent new technology here, but rather hopes to benefit from the hype around AI chatbots. About $3 million across the top apps. The top 10 AI mobile apps have already raised over $14 million this year, as of last month. By targeting a younger generation with experiences much like messaging, the chatbot looks more accessible than visiting his website on OpenAI.

The app itself can be downloaded for free on iOS with an in-app purchase. (It just launched this morning, so it may take a few hours to reach all App Store users and markets.)