Although Facebook and Twitter Inc. strive to get users to pay for blue check marks, Snapchat is trying to sell a chatbot, which is something entirely different.
The OpenAI platform that powers ChatGPT is the foundation for Snap Inc.’s new chatbot. My AI, the Snapchat bot I created, will covertly appear in a subscriber’s friends list. It can perform nearly all of ChatGPT’s functions, including writing poetry, answering trivia questions, organizing a weekend, and providing recipes.
This week, my AI started rolling out to Snapchat+ subscribers. It joins a slew of eccentric features that cost $4 a month, such as the capacity to alter the chat background’s style and personalize friends’ notification sounds. Despite being only nine months old, Snapchat+ already appears to be a hit. For the service, more than 2.5 million customers pay.
Compare that to Twitter Blue‘s estimated member count of less than 300,000, which is supposed to be a pillar of Elon Musk’s revenue-generating strategy. Twitter and Meta Platforms Inc. heavily emphasize verification badges in their sales pitches to potential subscribers.
Musk and Mark Zuckerberg need to catch up with the current hype cycle surrounding chatbots. The Information reported that Musk is looking into the possibility of creating an anti-woke chatbot. Zuckerberg announced that Meta is creating a new team to concentrate on AI-driven products without providing a specific release date. There has yet to be any indication that either will be connected to the subscription plans of their respective companies.
As it so frequently is, Snap might serve as a test case and an example for imitators. The business made the vanishing messages and “stories” style famous, and these features are now features of every contemporary social media program. Before Musk even owned Twitter and before the Meta Verified program was in place, it staked on subscriptions.
We wouldn’t be shocked to see a bot slip into our Twitter Direct Messages if the bot inside of Snapchat proves popular.
