With the AI race heating up, TikTok seems to be prefer it’s getting ready to launch its personal AI chatbot to Western customers, primarily based on a current submitting within the U.S.

In response to Semafor, TikTok has sought to trademark the title “Genie” for its coming AI chatbot device, which might allow customers to pose questions in-stream, and get instant responses, amongst different capabilities.

As per Semafor:

“In Could within the US, the viral video app filed to trademark the title “Genie” for an AI chatbot software program that can, amongst different capabilities, simulate conversations, facilitate interplay and communication between people and AI, and produce human-like speech and textual content.”

So TikTok’s seeking to make it extra of a hub for its AI functionalities, with the chatbot primarily connecting customers to completely different components of the app.

TikTok’s truly been creating its AI chatbot for a while, with customers within the Philippines gaining access to its “Tako” chatbot device in Could final yr.

Although Tako, in response to TikTok, is just designed to information customers to different movies within the app, to not reply extra complicated queries.

TikTok’s next-generation chatbot would seemingly be a extra sturdy providing, integrating all of TikTok’s varied AI components into one stream.

Which might additionally embody its generative AI search perform, which is now accessible in Douyin, the Chinese language model of the app, and permits customers to maximise discovery each inside and out of doors the app.

As reported by Pandaily (in Decmeber 23):

“The ‘AI Search’ characteristic is situated inside the search interface of the Douyin app, alongside different search companies comparable to merchandise, group shopping for, customers, and movies. Customers solely must enter related questions or data in ‘AI Search’ to acquire solutions generated by clever search know-how.”

TikTok’s up to date chatbot would seemingly incorporate this expanded search performance, together with TikTok’s evolving AI capabilities, which additionally now embody the capability to construct your personal digital people that may live-stream inside the app.

One other ingredient, as indicated by Semafor, could possibly be TikTok’s “StreamVoice” system, which may simulate an individual’s voice, primarily based on just some utterances, whereas TikTok’s additionally creating AI music technology processes and text-to-video creation instruments as effectively, and all of those might seemingly be built-in into an expanded chatbot providing, making it a lot simpler for TikTok customers to search out these varied functionalities.

So whereas Meta has pushed its AI chatbot out to all of its apps, offering a brand new technique to faucet into its AI instruments, TikTok would primarily be following the identical blueprint, although I think that TikTok’s device might be extra targeted on practical discovery, and making it simpler for customers to entry all of its varied instruments, versus developing with textual content summaries as responses.

As a result of that performance, on Fb and IG, doesn’t truly appear that precious. I imply, positive, it’s superb what the most recent AI instruments can produce, and it’s fascinating to have the ability to, say, generate a visible, primarily based on a textual content immediate in-stream.

However actually, how many individuals are tapping on Meta’s AI search prompts to get extra data on a publish within the app?

I think TikTok will transfer in a barely completely different route, offering a extra practical AI bot that can primarily incorporate all of its increasing AI creation instruments into one, making it simpler to attempt them out.

We might discover out quickly, with TikTok transferring to activate its “Genie” bot.