Meta loves celebrities – and celebrities love Meta

For the rest of us, the logic behind Meta's celebrity collaborations is a little more puzzling.

Around this time last year, Meta introduced a new round of celebrity-powered AI assistants as part of Messenger. These chatbots had the faces of celebrities like Kendall Jenner, Mr. Beast, Tom Brady, Snoop Dogg, and others. Oddly, these chatbots used the celebrities' likenesses, but not their real names. For example, I chatted with “Billie,” the character portrayed with a picture of Kendall Jenner, whose chat persona was that of a helpful, sisterly friend.

Meta reportedly paid up to $5 million over two years for the celebrity-faced AI assistants – for six hours of work in the studio. The deal didn't seem to work out particularly well for Meta. The chatbots were discontinued in August, less than a year after their launch.

So why is Meta using the celebrity AI strategy again when it seems to have gone completely wrong last time?

Celebrities could help make AI less threatening

Maybe last year's chatbots weren't a failure by some standards after all. Sure, people didn't seem interested in talking to the fake Tom Brady, but maybe the goal was to get enough people to try an AI chatbot just once—and the celebrity gimmick worked.

Or maybe meta just has a really weird relationship with the concept of celebrity: It's not a brand like Doritos using celebrities in Super Bowl ads, or a fashion house having an actress as the face of a perfume. Instagram has become so embedded in the concept of fame and celebrity over the past decade that it's impossible to imagine meta and famous people without each other (though I imagine Doritos get along just fine).

When Meta's Threads launched in the summer of 2023, real tensions arose: Big celebrities – the kind who hadn't used Twitter in years – suddenly flocked to the new platform, bringing lots of followers with them. But most of those celebrities went silent after a day or two, perhaps because they realized that a text-based medium wasn't really their thing. A few months later, Meta introduced a program where reality stars received cash rewards for posting on Threads.

When Taylor Swift released her latest album, she posted on Threads, where Mark Zuckerberg enthusiastically welcomed her. There was even a special glitter effect for users who typed in the name of her album. But after Meta rolled out the red carpet for the star, she never posted on Threads again.

And when Swift recently announced her support for Kamala Harris, she did so exclusively on Instagram—and not even in a cross-post on the platform's text-based cousin (for good reasons, as my colleague Peter Kafka explains).

There have been other flops in the world of celebrity meta-advertising. In 2019, Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Lopez, two celebrities whose endorsement deals are usually not cheap, appeared in three TV spots to promote Facebook's Portal. The portal was shut down at the end of 2022.

How celebrities can help meta

Therefore, it feels a little strange that Meta relies on celebrity endorsements for its AI products strange for me. Meta's products usually sell very well because people like to use them. Even celebrities use them – without getting paid!

But the reunion of the cast of Modern Family for a WhatsApp ad suggests that Meta is using celebrities to reach regular people who don't normally use AI or WhatsApp. And with these latest AI assistant voices, Meta isn't turning to Gen Z's hottest influencers, but at least Judi Dench.

I mean, at least Meta didn't “accidentally” hire a well-known celebrity's soundalike as the voice of an AI companion like, er, some other AI competitors. Could be worse!

Maybe it's just that AI is still a little scary and impersonal, and the folks at Meta believe that giving it a celebrity face – or voice – will make it seem more approachable. Oddly enough, I think the AI's ability to imitate celebrities is one of the things that many people fear about this technology. But, oh well.

My final guess on Meta's play here is that these decisions are coming from somewhere deep within the company itself. Perhaps they are based on a manager's instinct about what will go down well, mixed with some data from the marketing team. I'm sure there have been many meetings!

I still hold on to my personal favorite theory: Yann LeCun is a rabid fan of the “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” series and was craving the lady.