As the owner of the picture messaging app Snapchat advances its AI research, Snap Inc. announced on Wednesday that its artificial intelligence chatbot will soon be able to react to users’ messages with a totally AI-generated image.

The disclosure was made at Snap’s yearly Partner Summit. The business wants to leverage the technology to hasten the development of augmented reality (AR) features, or digital images superimposed over real-world photographs and videos.

The IT industry has recently turned its attention to generative AI, which can produce original text or images in response to commands. Using technology developed by company OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Snap’s chatbot, dubbed My AI, which can assist users with everything from producing poetry to information seeking, was created.

According to a statement from Snap on Wednesday, My AI is now freely accessible to all Snapchat users and can be used to answer queries in private chats between friends. Users who pay $3.99 a month for Snapchat+, the company’s premium subscription service, were the first to use the chatbot.

According to Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap, “My AI could help users explore more areas of the Snapchat app by recommending lenses, which can add effects to photos and videos, or use the app’s map feature to recommend real-world places to visit.”

The essence of our service, communication, is being introduced to AI for the first time, he stated. People are genuinely employing My AI as a tool for creativity.

My AI will be able to reply to people with photos created by itself using AI-first technology first on Snapchat+, which has 3 million subscribers, according to Snap.

Concerns regarding whether AI chatbots could plagiarize previously published works, deliver incorrect information, or return harmful results to questions have expanded along with the use of AI chatbots.

My AI now has additional safety safeguards, according to Snap, including the ability to temporarily deny access to a user if they persistently ask the chatbot offensive or damaging questions.

According to Spiegel, Snap analyzes chats with My AI and has discovered that 99.5% of the chatbot’s responses comply with Snapchat’s community standards.

He stated that in order to “ensure the conversation is age-appropriate,” My AI will now also take a user’s age into account.

The Santa Monica, California-based company also announced new augmented reality (AR) mirrors on Wednesday. These mirrors can be set in stores to assist shoppers in visually trying on clothing items or determining which accessories would go best with their ensemble.

According to Snap, the mirrors are used in some stores by the retailers Nike and Men’s Warehouse.

The mirrors are a part of a business division that Snap introduced last month to assist other businesses in creating augmented reality (AR) experiences for their own applications and websites. The project might also assist Snap in expanding outside digital advertising, which presently accounts for the lion’s share of its income.