Meta's new AI Studio helps you create your own custom AI chatbots

Want to cook up an AI-powered chatbot with a touch of your own personality and knowledge? You’ll soon be able to do just that, courtesy of a new tool from Meta called AI Studio.

In a news release on Monday, the company touted AI Studio as a place where people can create, share, and discover AI chatbots — no technical skills required. Meta also played up the capability for Instagram creators. Creators will be able to build an AI chatbot as an extension of themselves that can directly answer questions in direct messages and stories, potentially helping them reach more people.

Although you can try the existing chatbots already populating AI Studio, you’ll probably have to wait a while before you can cook up your own chatbots. AI Studio has just started rolling out in the US to Instagram Business accounts and will expand to all Meta users over the next few weeks. Meta says the tool will be accessible on its own website but will also pop up in Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp.

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Once AI Studio is available to you, you’ll be able to develop your custom chatbot in a couple of different ways. Either visit AI Studio on the web or start a new message in Instagram, and select the option for “Create an AI chat.” You can then customize your AI character’s name, personality, tone, avatar, and tagline. Meta also offers a guide with tips and best practices to help you give birth to your virtual character.

“Creators can customize their AI based on things like their Instagram content, topics to avoid and links they want it to share,” Meta said in its news release. “Through the professional dashboard in the Instagram app, creators can turn auto-replies on and off, and even decide who their AI replies to. Responses from creator AIs are clearly labeled, so there’s full transparency for fans.”

In an interview with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang at Siggraph 2024, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared his thoughts on AI Studio and the ability to create an AI chatbot.

“We want to empower all the people who use our products to basically create agents for themselves,” Zuckerberg said. “The one that we’re just starting to roll out more now is AI Studio. It basically is a set of tools that eventually is going to make it so that every creator can build an AI version of themselves as an agent or an assistant that their community can interact with.”

Creators and businesses who want to interact with their followers and customers may simply not have enough time in the day to do so, Zuckerberg explained. As an alternative, you could train the AI agent on your material to represent you in the way that you want. Beyond using AI chatbots to act as virtual versions of yourself, you can also use them for role playing.

“One of the top use cases for Meta AI already is people using it to role-play difficult social situations — having a completely judgement free zone where you can role-play that and see how the conversation will go,” Zuckerberg said.

For now, you can check out some of the AI chatbots that other people have built. Browse to the AI Studio chatbot page to find chatbots such as The Sassy Psychic Priscilla, PumpMaster, Flip Pawsitive Affirmation Dog, Homework Solver & AI Tutor, and London Lens. Try some of these and other chatbots, and you should be ready to create your own when the tool rolls out.