What happened

Introduced in late 2023 across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger as part of an initiative to enhance user engagement, Meta's AI characters appeared to gain little traction until the Financial Times published an interview with the head of generative AI at Meta who said he expected the personas to become like real accounts on its platforms. 

The statement prompted commentators to raise concerns about the purpose and authenticity of Meta's digital personas, with some users pointing out that Facebook was now full of AI "slop" and had been bleeding users for years. 

Others took issue with the some of the characters' supposedly diverse backgrounds, which they accused of being skin-deep.

A technical issue that prevented users from blocking the characters further raised the stakes.

Why it happened

Meta attributed the removal of the AI characters to the bug, claiming it was an early experiment that had not met user expectations. 

But the timing of the withdrawal - immediately following a public outcry - persuaded many that the company realised it's product had missed the mark and was damaging its reputation.