News on February 28, social media Snapchat announced on Monday local time that it will provide paying users with a chat robot My AI using OpenAI technology, becoming the latest company to release AI chat functions on its platform.
Snap said on Monday that the chatbot, called My AI, is available to premium users with a Snapchat+ subscription. Snapchat+ is a $3.99 per month paid subscription service. The My AI chatbot helps answer user questions and generates prompts on the chat tab of the app.
ChatGPT, released by OpenAI late last year, has become one of the hottest elements in the tech world. One of the OpenAI investors, Microsoft, has integrated the technology behind ChatGPT into the Bing search engine, allowing specific users to ask questions and get answers and suggestions in the form of chat. Search leader Alphabet’s Google has also begun rolling out a new AI-powered chat service called “Bard” to some users.
However, the technology is not perfect. Some users who tried Microsoft’s new Bing said the results provided by the new version of the search engine were flawed. Microsoft has since tweaked the deployment in an attempt to reduce errors.
In a statement, Snap said the My AI chatbot, which uses OpenAI technology custom-made for Snapchat, could also be subject to errors.
“My AI can easily hallucinate and be tricked into saying anything,” Snap said. “It has many flaws, please understand and apologize in advance!” The company also warned: “Please do not share any secrets with My AI, And don’t rely on the advice it offers.”
Snap currently only offers chatbots to users who subscribe to the Snapchat+ service. Social media companies are trying to lure more users to their paid services amid growing turmoil in the digital advertising market. Both Twitter and Meta have launched paid certification subscription services, trying to entice customers to pay with blue certification badges and promises to provide more customer support services. Snap said Snapchat+ has more than 2.5 million subscribers since it launched last summer.
Snap is also one of the companies hardest hit by the turmoil in the ad market, as many companies cut back on ad spending amid fears of a poor economic environment, and Apple’s 2021 changes to its iOS privacy policy make it harder to track users and deliver targeted ads . The reason Snap launched its subscription service is to diversify its revenue. The company also said it doesn’t fully expect to replace advertising revenue with subscription revenue.
Snap said late last month that revenue growth had stagnated in the fourth quarter of 2022 and that revenue could decline in the first quarter of this year. Snap shares rose about 1% on Monday, though they have fallen nearly 75% over the past year.