Meta"s AI chatbot will soon get the voices of well-known celebrities such as Judi Dench and John Cena, according to a source who spoke to Reuters. The company will announce that it has struck deals with several actors, including Kristen Bell, for use with its AI this week at its Connect conference, which will begin on Wednesday.
The celebrity voices will total five at launch. The other two are Awkwafina and Keegan-Michael Key. There will also be a selection of generic voices that users will be able to pick from.
Many global users have already been left out in the cold regarding AI several times, always having to wait longer for access compared to people in the US. The launch of these voices will be no different. The source said the voices will first launch in the US and other English-speaking markets this week across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
In anticipation of the Meta Connect event, Mark Zuckerberg posted a video of himself with John Cena last week to Instagram where they engaged in stunts while wearing Ray-Ban Meta glasses. The inclusion of Cena was a nod to the fact his voice will be available and the glasses could be a teaser for new augmented-reality glasses that Meta is expected to unveil.
Meta AI is currently only available in 22 countries, including the US, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. It will be interesting to see if the company expands the availability of its AI assistant at the Meta Connect conference or continues to restrict access.
Meta"s main rivals in this space are OpenAI"s ChatGPT and Google"s Gemini, both of which are in vastly more countries. We won"t have to wait much longer for the new voices to be confirmed. Hopefully, the company will expand Meta AI to more people who want to use it.
Source: Reuters