AI Chatbots on Social Media: How Useful are They?

AI chatbots are flooding social media platforms. From the Meta AI chatbot in Instagram to Grok AI on X (formerly Twitter), the automated

Social media companies have been touting the technology as a way to boost user experience on the platform, however, it remains uncertain if their users are really enjoying this slew of generative AI on their favorite apps and sites.

Good for Business Advertising

If it is solely for social media influencers and businesses on the platforms, the integration of these chatbots into platforms is mostly seen in a positive light in boosting profits.

Many of the social media platforms have been showcasing the capabilities of their chatbots to attract potential customers willing to pay their services to integrate the technology into their operations.

This can already be seen as evidenced by a Business Insider report, noting a surge in "AI influencers" to advertise brands and businesses.

The venture into generative technology is seen as a massive budget-saving strategy or a way to get a passive income.

Content Suggestion

Regular and casual users will primarily benefit from the AI chatbots for content suggestion and recommendations.

Presented as a more personal content algorithm, users have the opportunity to discover more content closer to their preferences much easier than scrolling through hundreds of posts each time.

Outside of its novelty, however, the chatbot offers little to no use to an average user as the technology remains prone to occasional errors and inaccuracies.

More Personal Data Being Collected

It is worth noting that leaning more into generative AI also means allowing its developers to gather more user information and details to train their models.

Platforms like YouTube, X, Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit are already supplying content to AI firms for their training datasets.

Using their chatbots will only allow companies to further train their technology on a live audience, storing related data to improve their chatbot and to record user preferences for future uses.

However, whether the practice is acceptable or not remains to the user's discretion.