Instagram's New AI Chatbot Creator Could Reduce Influencer Burnout

Ask a million entrepreneurs what they think you need to do to succeed and very close to a million of them will say "work hard--really, really, hard." In our always-on digital world, that often means entrepreneurs labor at online tasks even when they're not "in the office," and the constant strain can lead to burnout. Social media influencers have it even worse: being online 24/7 is part of this particular slice of entrepreneurship. 

Cue Instagram, with a new idea to let influencers create custom chatbots to interact with their account followers. It could lighten the time burden for some influencers, since the new tool allows you to train a chatbot to act like you yourself! But will fans get the same kick out of chatting to a robot?

In a blog post explaining its new "AI Studio" system, which is planned for an initial U.S.-only rollout, Instagram parent Meta says the tool will allow users to "create, share and discover AIs to chat with--no tech skills required." The system isn't aimed exclusively at brands or social media influencers, and the release emphasizes that anyone can use it to to build an AI "designed to make you laugh, generate memes, give travel advice." Still, Meta made an effort to highlight the ways influencers will benefit from the chatbots. "Creators can also make an AI as an extension of themselves to answer common DM questions and story replies," which may help them "reach more people."

Meta's post highlights the simplicity of AI Studio, which either lets you create a chatbot from scratch or use a in-built template. Creators can customize the AIs based on "things like their Instagram content, topics to avoid and links they want it to share." Through Instagram's professional user dashboard, influencers can customize privacy settings on the AI chatbots, like controlling reply settings--Instagram is clearly sensitive how influencers and high-volume creators can suffer social media overload.

The focus on creators can be seen as a way to help them generate more content and interactions via the AI, and thus perhaps expand the reach of their accounts, 24/7/365. Done right, it could let an influencer could back off a little and avoid burnout. Meta said it has tested and featured a small list of early users, including comedian Violet Benson, star of the "Almost Adulting" podcast, who've already created their AIs. 

Meta also highlights an important feature to make it clear that certain responses are not from a person, but from a chatbot instead--the posts will be "clearly labeled" so that there's "full transparency for fans," a crucial feature in an era when it's increasingly hard to tell whether some content is AI-generated or not. The disclaimer may go some way to insulate Meta from any accusations of sharing misinformation or misleading people.

But this point touches on a really important part of the way social media systems have worked, at least until now. It seems certain that regular Instagram users may get a kick out of creating AIs for their friends to interact with, and it will certainly drive a huge slew of new funny, embarrassing, or controversial memes. That's great for Meta, since it may be a new "toy" that keeps more users logged in for a little longer, so they can be served more ads and pump up Meta's bottom line. 

But part of the joy of a social media platform like Instagram, TikTok or even X is that they allowed fans to gain access to celebrities and even popular brand spokespeople at previously impossible direct levels. Choosing to interact with AI chatbots instead of real people is certainly a novel, but growing phenomenon--in June, for example, an unusual new social media network called Butterflies was launched with AI chats as its core model.

But fame--and income--for influencers is built around accounts that cultivate a cult of personality of an actual human. Fans seeking a real-life autograph from, say, Arnold Schwarzenegger would likely be thrilled if a robot Terminator actually wielded the pen. But things may be different if you want to chat with, say, your favorite gaming influencer, but it's really an AI robot answering while the real person may be fast asleep, or being busy "AFK" (away from keyboard) actually living their life.