Report: John Cena and Judi Dench’s Next Role Is Your Meta AI Voice
Celebrity endorsements can mean a lot to a product, but Meta is turning various celebrity voices into the literal voices of its Meta AI assistant. John Cena, Kristen Bell, Awkwafina, Keegan-Michael Key, and Judi Dench may not be your real-life friends, but you’ll soon be able to chat with their synthetic voice clones as much as you like, according to a report by Reuters. Meta is expected to announce these celebrities and possibly more that you will hear when you talk to the AI chatbot.
If celebrity voices for an AI chatbot seem like a gimmick, that’s because it is. But as generative AI assistants continue to pop up in an already crowded field, gimmicks could help Meta generate interest as it jockeys for position with OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
The celebrity deal will see them all as options for the AI’s voice, joining the more generic options. The reported mix is interesting because they’re all at or near the height of fame, all have roles that kids would recognize, and all have made many appearances in more mature films and shows.
It’s unclear whether the celebrity voices will be paid, though the celebrities are reportedly getting hefty salaries for the project. Those checks ensure that Meta won’t face the resentment OpenAI had over allegations that one of ChatGPT’s synthetic voices sounded like Scarlett Johansson in the film Her.
That’s no small feat, considering actors and writers went on strike last year, in no small part due to concerns about AI replacing them. There have been rumors that SAG-AFTRA has a deal with Meta for the use of actor voices, but there’s been no announcement as to whether it might be connected to this celebrity voice plan.
Famous or foolish?
Even if celebrity voices make Meta AI a hit, the company can’t rest on its laurels for long. Google has plans to launch AI chatbots of celebrities and fictional characters on YouTube. Even Meta’s plan to give you the chance to create a custom AI chatbot based on yourself is something that Google, Character.aiand others are working on it.
Meta’s eagerness to incorporate celebrities into its AI projects makes sense, but the company has had some trouble on the front recently. Meta’s Celebrity AI chatbots used celebrity likenesses for its text-based Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp functionality when it launched earlier this year. If you look now, the chatbots are still there, albeit without any celebrity branding.
Familiar voices also seduced Amazon, which first gave Alexa the voices of Samuel L. Jackson, followed by Melissa McCarthy, Shaquille O’Neal and Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan. A few years after the first test, Amazon DELETED the voices of Alexa.
Still, Meta is expected to present a lot of AI news at this year’s Connect conference, so this may just be the tip of the iceberg, thanks in part to the enthusiastic support from celebrities we’ll all soon hear speaking.