Mark Zuckerberg Allegedly Plans to Deploy AI Avatar of Himself for Employees to Interact With

Mark Zuckerberg is pushing for his staff to communicate with him directly via a highly realistic digital copy of himself. Meta is developing an AI avatar that looks and sounds exactly like him, using a treasure trove of his images, voice recordings, personal habits, and even public remarks. One day, employees across the company’s massive workforce of over 79,000 people will be able to fire off queries, receive responses, and hear words of advice from the founder that sound exactly like the real thing.

Word of the project has spread this week, thanks to insiders who have been closely watching it all, and Zuckerberg himself is devoting time to assist train the system, attending tech review meetings and putting in 5 to 10 hours of coding on Meta’s larger AI goals each week. This avatar was originally part of a larger concept to create a “CEO agent” to assist the creator in managing his workload, but the team ultimately decided to shift focus and provide him with a personal one instead.

When your company is as large as Meta, it might be difficult to gain face time with the boss. This avatar is intended to bridge that divide by allowing anyone who works for the company to just start a discussion and hear Zuck’s tone, the way he speaks, and even his thoughts on where the company is headed right now. Initial accounts of the item show it as a 3D animated figure that moves and responds in real time, trained on years of video footage, speeches, and even internal talks about the company’s direction.

If this works, it might pave the way for other similar tools aimed at creators and influencers. Meta currently allows users to create their own chatbots, and they’ve been experimenting with AI avatars that engage with their Instagram fans. If all goes well, the company may release the same technology so that others can create their own digital clones.

Zuckerberg, like the rest of Meta, appears to be all about pushing artificial intelligence. The company intends to invest a whooping $115-135 billion on the infrastructure required to have all this AI up and running within the next year. They just developed Muse Spark, a tool for visual chores and everyday planning, and they’ve also been experimenting with allowing staff to use AI to optimize their daily work and eliminate unneeded aggravation. Some people worry that this will merely result in more job cuts, but the push to incorporate more AI into the workplace continues.
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