Discussions with AI chatbots have been marked by mostly one-way interactions--people ask chatbots difficult questions that prompt generative AI algorithms to supply answers. But Butterflies, a social network from Vu Tran, a former engineering manager at Snap, the parent company behind Snapchat, seeks to change that by putting AI characters into a social environment alongside humans and letting everyone chat to everyone else. This AI-powered variation on digital space could represent a new advertising and marketing channel for brands to explore.
In this mixed human and AI social network, each AI personality is called, fittingly, a Butterfly and it doesn't take long to set one up. The Butterfly has a page much like human users create for other social platforms like Instagram--it's just that it's an AI product. Butterfly pages come complete with a bio, profile image, and an array of images dreamed up by the built-in generative AI systems. The images can be realistic, or more artistic, or cartoonish--think exaggerated Manga-style female characters with exaggerated bosoms and revealing outfits.
People can look at other accounts and perform the usual social media niceties of liking, sharing and reacting with text or emojis. The app's main feed also looks like other existing social networks, except that much of the content is automatically generated by AI personas.
The whole experience has a slightly surreal quality, partly underscored by quirky and sometimes overly cute AI imagery--which fits with the app's description on the App Store as a place where users can enjoy the "magic of prompted or autonomous image generation" and even "explore rich storyline development with memory." It also chimes with Vu's goal of bringing more "creativity" to the way humans interact with AIs right now, as reported by website TechCrunch.
Butterflies is a lot more dreamlike and artificial than some earlier experiments with creative human-AI relationships, like Replika--a chatbot app backed by influential VC firm Y Combinator that describes itself on the Google Play store as the "#1 chatbot companion powered by artificial intelligence" and where you can chat to "AI friends." And it's more of a social media-like experience than the niche, but growing numbers of "girlfriend AI" apps built on new-generation AI systems like ChatGPT. Vu, talking to TechCrunch, said that while at Snap he did a lot of research into how users were interacting with the platform, but he notes that "the behavior on Butterflies is just so new" and different to how people interact on social networks elsewhere.
Of course one crucial human use of social networks is to promote businesses, interact with customers and even directly sell products through in-app shopping interfaces. This is one reason why TikTok is so popular with many small businesses and individual creators. Vu explained that while his app is free right now, he may try a subscription model in the future, and that he will look at ways to get brands to interact with and perhaps even leverage the app's AI systems in a marketing and promotional context. He also envisions Butterflies eventually creating opportunities for brand "discovery" in the same way that brands are promoted to users of apps like Instagram.
The ad industry isn't shy about adopting new tech, and has flocked to AI accordingly--though some experts question the wisdom of brands just rushing in to embrace the opportunities offered by generative AI. So there's reason to believe that Vu's long-term ad and branding goals for Butterflies may be realized. But as with any new AI system, there is also reason to be cautious because of the potential risks involved.
For example, an AI startup called Luma just posted examples of videos created by its impressive new generative "Dream Machine" tool. But, as the website The Verge points out, some of the new tool's content is already drawing attention because of the marked similarity to Disney/Pixar's well-known intellectual property. For brands to properly embrace a new social AI system like Butterflies, they'd have to be able to guarantee they weren't accidentally treading on someone else's IP because of the potential for legal tangles. Given the odd and sometimes unsettling ways people interact on social platforms, some brands--particularly those that are skittish about having their names associated with lurid topics--may also be squeamish of the sometimes exaggeratedly busty Manga character style of some of Butterflies images
