Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg predicts a future the place AI will perceive you so effectively that totally different AI personas will turn out to be your “buddies.”
In a brand new interview with podcaster Dwarkesh Patel, Zuckerberg stated that he thinks “the typical particular person desires extra connectivity, extra connection that they really have,” and thinks AI chatbots skilled to have totally different personalities may assist fill that void.
“The common American, I believe, has fewer than three buddies, three individuals they’d think about buddies, and the typical particular person has demand for meaningfully extra, I believe it is like 15 buddies,” Zuckerberg instructed Patel. (He was possible referring to a 2023 Pew Analysis Middle survey, which discovered that 40% of Individuals say they’ve three or fewer buddies, whereas 38% have 5 or extra.)
Zuckerberg says AI has the chance to fill that hole.
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Though he stated that AI would “in all probability” not change in-person or real-life connections, it may assist individuals really feel much less alone. He added that customers are already tapping into AI to organize for tough conversations with individuals of their lives, and different corporations are already providing AI personas as digital therapists and romantic companions.
“For individuals who haven’t got a therapist, I believe everybody could have an AI,” Zuckerberg stated in a separate podcast with analyst Ben Thompson final week.
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Nonetheless, not everyone seems to be on board with having AI “buddies,” and social media customers criticized Zuckerberg for his feedback.
The author Neil Turkewitz wrote on X that Zuckerberg’s perspective “is what occurs if you imagine that humanity is reducible to binary knowledge — you consider friendship by means of the lens of provide & demand.”
Different customers questioned if AI buddies would inform people vote and what to imagine, whereas one other tracked Meta’s evolution from a spot to attach with buddies in 2006 to a spot to attach with “imaginary buddies” in 2026.
Some have been extra optimistic, writing that they “needed an AI buddy.”
Carolyn Rogers, head of selling on the company Blokhaus, wrote on X that the subsequent step can be for AI buddies to start out recommending merchandise, enabling Meta to monetize that friendship.
2006 – Be a part of Fb to attach together with your friends2026 – Be a part of Fb to attach together with your imaginary buddies
— WRLB? (@WRLB2) Might 1, 2025
Zuckerberg’s feedback arrive as Meta launched a standalone Meta AI app final week to compete with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and xAI’s Grok.
Zuckerberg revealed in an Instagram video concerning the app’s launch that nearly a billion individuals use Meta AI globally throughout the corporate’s apps like Fb, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
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