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Google is reportedly building new AI-powered chatbots based on celebrities and YouTube influencers. The idea isn\u2019t groundbreaking \u2014 startups like Character.ai and companies like Meta have <\/a> products like this \u2014 but neither is <\/a> so far.<\/p>\n Google\u2019s celebrity chatbots will be powered by the company\u2019s Gemini family of large language models according to The Information<\/em>, which <\/a> on Monday. The company is trying to strike partnerships with influencers as well as celebrities, and is also working on a feature that will let people create their own chatbots simply by describing their personalities and appearance \u2014 something that Character.ai already <\/a>. A fun fact: Noam Shazeer, one of the co-founders of Character.ai, is a former Google engineer and <\/a> of \u201ctransformers,\u201d the fundamental tech that made today\u2019s generative AI possible.<\/p>\n It isn\u2019t yet clear which celebrities or influencers Google might partner with. Meta\u2019s chatbots, for instance, are based on personalities like TikTok star Charli D\u2019Amelio, YouTube phenomenon Mr. Beast, Snoop Dogg, Tom Brady and Paris Hilton among others, while Character.ai\u2019s characters include politicians, philosophers, fictional characters, and even objects like a block of cheese that talks. Google\u2019s project is reportedly being led by a longtime executive called Ryan Germick who works on Google Doodles, and a team of ten.<\/p>\n It also sounds like Google\u2019s bots could be just an experiment \u2014 according to the report, the bots might only show up on Google Labs, the company\u2019s website for experimental products, instead of being available more broadly.<\/p>\n It isn\u2019t clear why Google\u2019s doing this. Meta\u2019s AI chatbots based on celebrities never really took off despite the company stuffing them in every product it makes. As The Information<\/em> pointed out, the company\u2019s chatbot based on Snoop Dogg has only 15,000 followers on Instagram compared with 87.5 million followers who follow the human rapper.<\/p>\n This article contains affiliate links; if you click such a link and make a purchase, we may earn a commission.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n