NEW DELHI: In a bid to innovate chatbot experience Google is developing AI chatbots. These chatbots mimic personalities of celebrities and YouTube influencers. According to a report by The Information these chatbots are powered by Google's Gemini language models LLMs. They aim to provide users with an interactive experience that feels like conversing with a famous personality. This development mirrors similar offerings from Character.ai and Meta AI. These companies have ventured into creating personality-driven AI chatbots. Their chatbots feature well-known figures like Tom Brady Paris Hilton and Snoop Dogg.
Character.ai, launched in September 2022 allows users to assign specific characters and personalities to chatbots. This makes interactions highly personalized. Users can model these chatbots after people they know or celebrities. Google’s new initiative seems to take a page from this book. It allows for the creation of customized chatbots with detailed traits and appearances.
Interestingly Google's move into this space follows significant investment in Character.ai. In November 2023 Reuters reported that Google planned to invest "hundreds of millions of dollars" in AI chatbot startup. Google’s collaboration with Character.ai isn’t new. The partnership was announced at Google I/O 2024. It was revealed that Character.ai leverages Google Cloud and its technologies to enhance its platform. This deepening relationship now sheds light on Google’s strategy and what it stands to gain from such partnerships.
Founded by former Google employees Noam Shazeer and Daniel De Freitas Character.ai has been at the forefront of creating dynamic and engaging chatbot experiences. Google’s experimental celebrity chatbot project, although not yet confirmed or available on Google Labs. It signals its ambition to compete in niche market.
The potential rollout of AI chatbots in India supporting multiple Indian languages might enable interactions with virtual renditions of celebrities like Shahrukh Khan or Pankaj Tripathi. This innovation could thus become even more engaging. However it remains to be seen whether Google’s recent venture will reach the public domain or if it will stay an experimental product. Google's historical pattern of discontinuing projects introduces an element of uncertainty to this otherwise promising venture.
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