If you thought 2024 would be a big year for social platforms integrating AI elements into their apps, then you ain’t seen it yet, because Meta is looking to integrate even more AI into your feeds next year.

How is this supposed to succeed?

Well, aside from integrating AI chatbots into everything imaginable, Meta’s next plan is to deploy millions of generative AI characters and impersonate them as actual users on Facebook and Instagram.

According to Connor Hayes, Meta’s VP of Product for Gen AI, it will soon enable a whole new set of AI profiles in its apps.

According to Hayes (via The Financial Times):

“We expect that these AIs will actually exist on our platforms over time, similar to accounts. They have bios and profile pictures and can generate and share AI-powered content on the platform.”

Which isn’t all that surprising.

In an interview in August, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated the following:

“Every part of our work will change in some way (through AI). (For example) feeds are from – you know, it was already content from friends, and now it’s mostly content from creators. In the future, a large part of it will be AI-generated.”

This seemed to indicate that Zuckerberg expected more and more people to eventually use Meta’s genetic AI tools to create images and posts, but soon after, Meta hired an app developer Michael Saymanwho just created Social.ai, an app that allows you to do this Interact with millions of AI botseach with their own personality and focus.

So the path seems pretty clear: Meta is looking to integrate elements of Social.ai into its core social experiences, demonstrating the evolving capacity of its AI models while offering new ways to interact with its apps.

That honestly sounds terrible, and the reaction online has been strong against integrating more bots into social apps.

On the other hand, most social media users instinctively reject change, and the real question is, “Will it work?”

If Meta released millions of AI profiles on Facebook and IG, each with their own individual personality focused on a specific topic and/or area of ​​interest, could that actually increase app usage and engagement?

And the answer, whether you like it or not, is probably yes.

Take, for example, the recent backlash on Threads regarding the difficulty users have had growing their following on the app. On Bluesky, which allows users to access the “Following” feed by default (as opposed to the algorithm-defined “For You” stream), many YouTubers have claimed that it is much easier to gain followers and an audience of your own unlike threads, where follower growth seems to stagnate fairly quickly.

Threads was spooked by the sudden rise of Bluesky and tried to fix this problem by updating its algorithm to give more prominence to the content of profiles you follow in the feed.

But in reality, you will never gain followers like you did in the past on Twitter or Facebook because modern social media algorithms are more focused on engagement and show you more content similar to what you already interact with. This approach, led by TikTok, has allowed the platforms to spend more time on stream, and therefore they would prefer you to rely on their recommendation algorithms and “for you” feeds rather than curate your own experience through following.

The end result is that you don’t actually have to follow anyone anymore because you can just rely on the system to show you more things that you like. This means that people aren’t following profiles as quickly as they used to.

Therefore, it will be difficult to build a fan base, but at the same time, creators are also tuned into this as a growth metric and want this number to increase.

And since only a fraction of social media users actually post anything, Meta knows it has to keep those users happy.

So what happens when Meta launches millions of AI bots and directs them all to follow profiles related to their focus topics?

Now you’re gaining thousands of followers every day, and Meta can unlock many more followers to increase those numbers further. These bots can also interact with your updates by asking questions, providing answers, and giving you encouraging notes.

Sure, they’re bots, but do you really think users care?

That’s the key question: Will the fact that it’s artificial engagement noticeably reduce the dopamine rush people get when they open the app and see that they’re getting a ton of likes every time they share an update , comments and new followers?

I would like to believe that this would be the case, but in reality I suspect that it will not be the case.

We’ve already seen people use the follow-for-follow tactic to boost their numbers and make themselves feel popular even though the people following them have no real interest in it, what they post. We’ve seen people pay for bot followers to increase their perceived importance. We’ve seen people buying likes to get that certain level of engagement and/or relevance.

People know that a lot of social media engagement is already fake. So do you really think they’re going to question it when these new bots pump up their numbers in a new way?

I expect that many, many users will simply feel good about getting attention, and that Meta’s AI bots will actually increase engagement as a result. Sure, it’s not real, “social” interaction as we would typically define it. But here too: if the numbers go up, I suspect that many will welcome it.

There is also a practical benefit to having AI bots as a sort of sounding board, providing alternative thoughts on your updates. You could post: “What should I have for dinner?” E.g. Get replies from an Italian cooking bot, a French cooking bot, an organic food bot, a deals and coupons bot, etc. This could actually be helpful, and there are a number of ways these answers could actually add value too.

Of course, it would also have an impact on influencers and those who want to apply for brand collaborations. Brands need to be even more discerning about which “influencers” they work with because if 70% of their followers are actually AI bots, they won’t be of much value to your advertising.

Aside from this consideration and the disclosure label pointing to AI bots (I suspect Meta will try to hide this where it can), I can actually see this being a successful strategy for the company.

That sounds bad, and the last thing we probably need is more bot accounts on social apps. But in practical application, you can imagine that many users will simply be happy with this extra engagement, artificial or not.

As the numbers rise, I suspect all other considerations will fade into the background.