Aiming to boost and revolutionise user interactions, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, has incorporated artificial intelligence (AI) powered profiles on these social media sites. While the AI accounts were initially introduced in July 2024, the experiment has recently faced backlash as more users have encountered them on their feeds. Social media consumers have criticised the authenticity, likened the profiles to spam bots, and, overall, have questioned the reason for their existence. Meta’s vice president of product for generative AI has explained that the objective of said AI profiles is to make the company’s apps more entertaining and engaging.
This comes as Meta continues to dominate social media, with the company reporting 3.29 billion daily users, or about 40% of the world’s population, in its latest earnings report (Q3 2024). In response to the outcry, Meta has decided to remove many of the AI profiles, though it has signalled plans to reintroduce the feature in the future with improvements. The company’s rules now mandate clear labelling of AI-generated content to address transparency concerns.
Competing with Snapchat and TikTok
In September, Snapchat released generative AI tools to help users who earn revenue from posting online. The tools also allow users to design 3D characters for their augmented reality experiences. Meanwhile, TikTok, owned by Chinese ByteDance, has its Symphony products, which allow brands and creators to use AI for advertising in videos for products and with text prompts. Moreover, the platform allows users to create AI-generated avatars and allows technology to translate content into different languages.
Talking to a chair?
Users have reported strange interactions with AI characters, such as talking to an AI character that represents a chair, “I’m just a simple chair, but I’m here to support you,” noted the account’s profile. Furthermore, The Guardian reported that conversations with the now-removed characters “quickly went sideways,” and that the profiles could not be blocked. Moreover, research from NBC found two dozen user-generated AI characters on Instagram named after Jesus Christ, God, Muhammad, Taylor Swift, Donald Trump, MrBeast, Harry Potter, and Adolf Hitler, which breached Meta’s own policies.
WhatsApp has also introduced chat with AI characters; however, the feature has only rolled out to beta users in the United States (US). The new tab replaces the Communities tab (without removing the Communities function).


Creating your own AI chatbot (only US users)
While the AI profiles created by Meta have been removed, users are still able to generate their own AI chatbots.
Go to aistudio.instagram.com using a computer.
Click “Discover.” Click on an AI or search for one. Enter a message or click a message prompt. Meta suggests being “mindful” before including any personal information in your message (e.g. name, address, email address or phone number).
Meta also warns that AI answers might not be “accurate or appropriate” and that the company uses user messages to train its models.
The US-based company is also looking to compete with Sora and Runway with its Movie Gen. It is not yet accessible to the public and will allow users to create high-definition AI videos via text descriptions.