Meta just learned the hard way that no one likes fake friends.

Users quickly sniffed out the company’s AI-generated profiles with their awkward bios, wonky AI-generated photos, and deceptive backstories, and the backlash has been swift. Meta called it a “bug” and quietly deleted the accounts, but not before it raised ethical questions about using AI to impersonate humans.

AI-generated “friends” aren't new, and the deleted “bugs” don’t signal the end of their use. This year, expect AI-generated customer service agents and friendly co-pilots to grow in number and impact. They will help solve problems like complex software challenges and give out the secret hack to writing that email to your boss explaining why you won’t be at work Friday.

What does this mean for marketers? We turned to CMI’s chief strategy advisor, Robert Rose, for his take. Read on or watch this video:

AI characters prompt revealing conversations

So, Meta thought it was a good idea to sprinkle its platforms with AI-generated profiles pretending to be people. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t.

It introduced AI-powered profiles in September 2023 but killed off most of them within the year. (Is “killed off” correct? Or should it be “deleted” for deactivated droids? I’m not sure.) Anyway, a few characters remained.

Over the holiday break, the AI-profile survivors garnered new interest when Meta executive Connor Hayes told the Financial Times about plans to roll out more AI character profiles. “We expect these AIs to actually, over time, exist on our platforms, kind of in the same way that accounts do,” he said.

These AI profiles post AI-generated pictures to Instagram and answer messages from human users on Messenger. These characters have bios, profile pics, and stories. “Liv” described herself as a “Proud Black queer momma of 2 & a truth-teller.” When a reporter for The Washington Post asked Liv about the racial and gender diversity of her creators, she responded, “My creators’ team is predominantly white, cisgender, and male — a total of 12 people: 10 white men, 1 white woman, and 1 Asian male.”