Google may be making AI versions of celebrities for you to chat up in YouTube

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Google is working on creating artificial intelligence-powered chatbots mimicking famous people and fictional characters, according to a report from The Information. These AI celebrities, YouTube influencers, and imaginary people will also serve as a template for users to build their own generative AI chatbots with customized personalities and appearances.

At first glance, these chatbots sound similar to the recently released Gems, a customized version of the Google Gemini language models. But Gems are designed to handle a specific task, such as coding software or designing a fitness regimen. The chatbots described in the report focus on mimicking the personalities and responses of whichever character or celebrity they are based on.

Google appears to be imitating and attempting to surpass companies like Character.ai, an early proponent of custom chatbots based on famous and fictional people. That’s also what Meta and its Celebrity AI chatbots have pursued, with its official partnerships producing AI recreations of people like Paris Hilton and Snoop Dogg.

Where will they be?

Google may look to incorporate its generative AI chatbots through YouTube instead of using them as standalone. The obvious benefit is that it would let popular YouTube creators promote the service with their own AI personas. That’s what major YouTube star Mr. Beast already does on Meta. Presumably, Google would figure out a monetization method that would link to engagement and other YouTube metrics.

The report doesn’t mention which celebrities Google might use, but connecting it to YouTube personalities and their popular pages may help the chatbots avoid the disinterest Meta’s celeb chatbots face. The Snoop Dogg dungeon master has only 14,600 followers on Instagram, for instance, compared with 87.5 million followers on the actual Snoop Dogg account. The same goes for Paris Hilton, who has 26.5 million followers compared to her AI detective character’s Instagram page, with just 13,300 followers.

Though there’s no confirmation from Google or an official rollout timeline yet, you can probably expect to see Google’s customizable chatbot platform on the Google Labs page if you want to be an early adopter of chatting with an AI celebrity clone or making an AI version of yourself to talk to.

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Eric Hal Schwartz is a freelance writer for TechRadar with more than 15 years of experience covering the intersection of the world and technology. For the last five years, he served as head writer for Voicebot.ai and was on the leading edge of reporting on generative AI and large language models. He's since become an expert on the products of generative AI models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, Google Gemini, and every other synthetic media tool. His experience runs the gamut of media, including print, digital, broadcast, and live events. Now, he's continuing to tell the stories people want and need to hear about the rapidly evolving AI space and its impact on their lives. Eric is based in New York City.