At Meta Connect on September 27, 2023, Meta announced two related but different AI products: Meta AI, a general-purpose assistant, and 28 additional AIs built around distinct personas. The assistant was meant to answer everyday questions; the characters offered more role- and personality-led conversations. Meta’s current product page describes Meta AI today, but does not confirm that the original celebrity characters are still available.
What Meta announced at Connect 2023
Meta presented its generative-AI plans as a set of features for its apps and devices. The centerpiece was Meta AI, a conversational assistant launching in beta in the United States on WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram. Meta said it could provide real-time information through a Bing search partnership and generate images from text prompts. The announcement also described planned integrations with Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and Quest 3; those devices were not prerequisites for using the chatbot. Meta’s Connect announcement described the assistant as built with a custom model drawing on Llama 2 technology.
Alongside it, Meta announced 28 more AIs with distinct interests, personalities and backstories. The distinction was in their intended interaction: Meta AI was the general assistant, while the additional AIs were designed to make particular kinds of conversation feel more character-driven.
How Meta AI differed from the character AIs
| Feature | Meta AI | Additional persona-led AIs |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | General-purpose help and information | Conversations shaped around a character’s interests or role |
| Interaction style | Assistant-style responses, including text-to-image generation | Distinct personalities and backstories; Meta did not establish that each used a different base model |
| 2023 announcement | Beta rollout in the United States on WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram | 28 additional AIs announced alongside the assistant |
| Current availability | Meta’s current product page describes Meta AI across meta.ai, iOS and Android apps, a Mac desktop app, and Meta’s social and messaging apps | Not established by the current product page; the lineup is confirmed as part of the 2023 announcement, not as a currently available feature |
Which celebrities and characters were involved?
Meta named public figures and creators including Snoop Dogg, Tom Brady, Kendall Jenner and Naomi Osaka among the personalities associated with its character AIs. The characters were presented as fictionalized conversational personas rather than as a claim that each public figure personally answered users. Meta also showed examples such as Max the sous chef, for dinner ideas, and Lily, a personal editor and writing partner. The Associated Press quoted Mark Zuckerberg at the September 27, 2023 event saying, “These are just a few we have trained, there are a lot more coming.” The AP report covered the examples presented at Connect.
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Where the 2023 features were meant to appear
Meta described the assistant’s initial beta for WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram users in the United States, with a gradual rollout. The company also said Meta AI was coming to Ray-Ban Meta glasses and Quest 3. These were planned device integrations, not requirements for accessing the chatbot.
The wider announcement included AI stickers generated from prompts for WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and Facebook Stories, as well as forthcoming Instagram image-editing tools called Restyle and Backdrop. Meta said it would label generated or edited images to signal AI involvement. These were related parts of the Connect announcement, separate from the distinction between the general assistant and persona-led chat experiences.
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What is known about Meta AI now?
Meta’s current Meta AI page describes an assistant available through meta.ai, iOS and Android apps, a Mac desktop app, and Meta’s social and messaging apps. It describes text, image and voice capabilities, as well as real-time web information. Those are current product descriptions; they should not be treated as a complete account of what the assistant could do at its September 2023 launch.
The original character lineup’s present status is unclear from those official product descriptions. Meta’s current page establishes that Meta AI continues as a product, but does not establish that the 2023 celebrity-based characters remain available. It also does not establish when or why any character may have been discontinued.
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What Meta said about privacy and AI conversations
In its September 27, 2023 privacy explanation, Meta said models underlying the Connect features were trained using publicly available online information, licensed data and information from Meta products and services. Meta specifically said public Facebook and Instagram posts, including photos and text, were used. It said private posts were not used, and that private messages between friends and family were not used to train its AIs unless someone chose to share those messages with an AI. Meta updated that disclosure on November 21, 2025, clarifying that messages people choose to share with AI features may be used for training. Meta’s generative-AI privacy page is the company’s account of those practices.
Meta’s disclosure also says information shared while using generative-AI features may be used to improve products and for other purposes. It says AI may retain chat information to personalize responses, and that some questions may be shared with trusted partners such as search providers. Meta describes automated systems and human review of AI interactions, and says users can delete AI-chat information using commands such as “/reset-ai.” These are statements by Meta about its disclosed practices; they should not be read as a guarantee that every current product, feature, region or setting handles data identically.
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In an April 2025 engineering post, Meta described Private Processing for WhatsApp AI tools as a secure cloud-processing approach and explained its design goals. The post used anticipated-launch language, so it does not by itself establish current availability or which features and regions use it. Meta’s engineering explanation provides the company’s technical description.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Safety limits Meta acknowledged
Meta acknowledged that generative AI can produce inaccurate or inappropriate answers. In its responsible-AI post, the company said it was using notices, safety fine-tuning, integrity classifiers, feedback mechanisms and a staged beta rollout. Those are safeguards Meta said it was building, not proof that errors or harmful responses cannot occur. Meta’s responsible-AI post outlines its launch-era approach.
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What the announcement does—and does not—show
The central idea was a general assistant accompanied by a cast of conversational personas, not a single chatbot with celebrity branding. Meta’s 2023 announcement established the initial plan and named examples; its current product page describes the continuing assistant but does not settle the character lineup’s current availability. The sources cited here also do not provide a named adoption, usage or performance statistic for the launch.
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