Referenews

“In the short term, we’ll focus on building creative and expressive tools,” the CEO said on Instagram. “Over the longer term, we’ll focus on developing AI personas that can help people in a variety of ways.”

Snap on Monday also signaled it was making a bet on OpenAI’s technology. The company known for its Snapchat app said it had begun rolling out its own AI experimental chatbot to users who subscribe to its $3.99 a month subscription service, Snapchat+.

Tech companies more broadly have moved swiftly to embrace generative AI developments in recent months after the San Francisco-based AI research firm OpenAI launched a chatbot called ChatGPT in November that went viral. Tools such as ChatGPT and others allow users to ask written questions and receive responses in a conversational format as opposed to seeing a list of search results.

Microsoft Corp.

, which has invested in OpenAI, announced earlier this month that it was adding the technology behind ChatGPT to its Bing search engine in an attempt to chip away at Google’s dominance in the search market. It has given a select group of users access to the new Bing to try the system.

Alphabet Inc.’s

Google also said earlier this month that it was rolling out its own conversational AI service called Bard to an early group of testers.

Meta said its team initially was looking into ways to use the technology to enhance WhatsApp and Messenger, as well as with Instagram filters and video.

Snap said it is making its chatbot, called My AI, available only to Snapchat+ subscribers as social-media companies are trying to drive users to their paid services amid upheaval in the digital ad market. Twitter Inc. and Meta both have also started subscription offerings. Snapchat+ has reached more than 2.5 million subscribers since its launch last summer, Snap said. The Verge earlier reported on Snap’s AI technology rollout. 

Snap has been one of the companies hardest hit by ad-market turmoil, driven both by companies pulling back on spending amid economic downturn concerns and changes

Apple Inc.

made that make it more difficult to track users and target ads. Its subscription service is an attempt to diversify its revenue, though the company has indicated it doesn’t fully expect to replace ad revenue with earnings from its subscription service.

The social-media company late last month said revenue growth had stalled in the last three months of 2022 and that sales were likely to drop in the current quarter. Snap’s shares on Monday closed about 1% up, though have fallen about 75% over the past year. 

The AI technology isn’t without flaws. Within a week of launch, users of Microsoft’s new Bing called out the technology for providing inaccurate information, such as giving the results of last year’s Super Bowl when asked about this year’s. It also sometimes has given disturbing responses.  Microsoft responded by saying that the search engine was still a work in progress and that it would limit the amount of questions users could ask it a day.

Snap, in its announcement, said mistakes could occur with its chatbot that uses OpenAI technology customized for Snapchat.

“My AI is prone to hallucination and can be tricked into saying just about anything. Please be aware of its many deficiencies and sorry in advance!” the company said, also warning: “Please do not share any secrets with My AI and do not rely on it for advice.”

Mr. Zuckerberg has embraced hot technology trends before. In 2021, he renamed Facebook to Meta Platforms as part of his bet on the metaverse, a futuristic, more immersive vision of the internet that largely hasn’t materialized yet. The company has struggled financially since then, in part because of the same disruptions to the digital ad business that have challenged Snap. 

After posting three consecutive quarters of declining sales, Meta said in its most recent earnings report that market conditions were improving, and interviews and internal documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal show that the company has begun to see a path to recovery through using AI tools to improve ad-targeting and user engagement with its TikTok competitor, Reels.

Mr. Zuckerberg on Monday suggested that the company still had a lot of work to do with respect to AI developments.  “We have a lot of foundational work to do before getting to the really futuristic experiences,” he said.

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Write to Meghan Bobrowsky at meghan.bobrowsky@wsj.com