Meta's AI Now Features Celebrity Voices: Talk with Awkwafina, John Cena, and Judi Dench!

Meta is enhancing its AI chatbot on Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook by introducing celebrity voices. Announced at the Connect event, users can now interact with Meta AI and hear responses in voices resembling those of celebrities like Awkwafina, John Cena, Keegan-Michael Key, Kristen Bell, and the esteemed Dame Judi Dench. Initially, these celebrity voices will be available exclusively to US users.

For those who prefer a more standard voice, options like "Aspen," "Atlas," or "Clover" are also available. While Google and OpenAI offer similar chat experiences without celebrity influences, Meta is openly discussing partnerships with these celebrities, which likely involve compensation. Reports indicate that Meta has paid each celebrity millions for their voices, and during negotiations, some expressed a desire to limit what their voices could convey and ensure they wouldn’t be liable for any misuse of Meta AI.

Interestingly, Meta recently discontinued its chatbots mimicking celebrities like Tom Brady on Instagram, and Amazon had previously used voices like Samuel L. Jackson and Shaquille O'Neal for Alexa before discontinuing them as well.

Meta's AI updates extend beyond voice integration; the chatbot can now respond to questions about uploaded photos. For instance, users can send an image of a cake and request a recipe. Additionally, if you’d like to modify an image—perhaps changing an outfit or altering the background—Meta AI can execute those requests.

Tests revealed its capability to change a T-shirt's color, although the specifics of any restrictions on these features remain unclear. As similar advancements unfold in AI technology, it will be interesting to see how other tech giants, like Apple, approach these capabilities in the coming year.