Meta is building an artificial intelligence version of Mark Zuckerberg that can interact with employees on his behalf. This is one of the important measures for the technology giant to fully transform into AI. The $1.6 trillion conglomerate has been developing photorealistic AI 3D digital humans that can interact in real time, according to four people familiar with the matter. Three of the people said the company has recently made an AI version of Zuckerberg a priority.

People familiar with the matter said that Zuckerberg himself participated in the training and testing of this animated AI image, and the digital person can provide dialogue and feedback to employees in the future. Its training materials include the billionaire's behavior, tone, public remarks, and his recent thoughts on the company's strategy, aiming to allow employees to get closer to the founder by interacting with AI.

The project is in its early stages and is independent of Zuckerberg’s other “CEO Agent” initiative, which is designed to assist him in tasks such as quick information retrieval.

In the past year, Zuckerberg has invested tens of billions of dollars, promising to develop "personal superintelligence" and striving to catch up with competitors such as OpenAI and Google in the field of cutting-edge large models.

Last Wednesday, Meta released MuseSpark - a small, non-public "dedicated model" that can be applied to the entire product line and has advanced capabilities in areas such as health reasoning and visual understanding. The announcement was welcomed by Wall Street investors, with Meta's stock price rising 7% that day.

People familiar with the matter said that Zuckerberg has become increasingly hands-on in the process of leading the AI ​​transformation, spending 5 to 10 hours a week participating in coding of various AI projects and attending technical review meetings.

In September 2023, Meta launched the Meta AI assistant and a batch of AI chatbots based on celebrity images, including stars such as Snoop Dogg who have authorized the use of their voices and likenesses.

Multiple people familiar with the matter said that the development of this type of AI digital human originated from Zuckerberg's attention to the success of AI companion startup Character AI, especially among young users.

Meta then launched the "AI Studio", allowing users to generate their own AI digital people, or allowing creators to create their own AI avatars to chat with fans.

However, this type of personalized AI became embroiled in controversy last year, with reports that users were generating sexually explicit images, raising concerns among the public and regulators about the safety of children. Since January, Meta has restricted teenagers from accessing AI digital human features.

According to people familiar with the matter, Meta’s newly established super intelligence laboratory is already exploring a new generation of digital humans. Part of the company's focus is on creating photo-realistic virtual AI images, but the technology is difficult to implement - achieving realistic effects requires a lot of computing power and avoids interaction delays.

Meta is also optimizing voice interaction for digital people, and last year acquired two voice technology companies, PlayAI and WaveForms.

People familiar with the matter said that the AI ​​version of Zuckerberg will be trained based on his own images and sounds; if the experiment is successful, Internet celebrities and creators can also create the same personal AI avatar in the future.

Meta is promoting the full use of AI technology by internal employees to simplify processes and improve efficiency. It encourages employees to use the agent tools of the open source software OpenClaw and designs exclusive automated task tools.

Multiple people familiar with the matter said that product managers were asked to participate in a "skills baseline test" focusing on AI, including technical system design tests and "atmosphere coding" exercises. Some employees worry that this is a precursor to layoffs. Meta said that the test is not mandatory and is designed to identify additional training and development needs for product managers.