On February 27, 2023, Snap announced My AI, a chatbot built into Snapchat and “powered by OpenAI’s GPT technology,” customized for the app. It first rolled out to paying Snapchat+ subscribers as an experimental feature, then later expanded to the wider user base - putting a conversational AI in front of a young, mobile-first audience numbering in the hundreds of millions.
Snap pitched My AI as a casual helper: in its announcement the company said it could “recommend birthday gift ideas for your BFF, plan a hiking trip for a long weekend, suggest a recipe for dinner, or even write a haiku about cheese.” Users could give it a name and customize its chat wallpaper, blurring the line between a tool and a personalized companion pinned at the top of their chat list.
The announcement was unusually candid about the risks. Snap warned that My AI was “prone to hallucination and can be tricked into saying just about anything,” cautioned users “do not share any secrets with My AI and do not rely on it for advice,” and disclosed that “all conversations with My AI will be stored and may be reviewed to improve the product experience.” That transparency did not prevent friction: placing an always-on bot in a teen-heavy app drew quick scrutiny from parents and regulators.
Why business readers should care: My AI was an early test of embedding a general chatbot inside an existing mass-market product rather than as a standalone app. It showed both the distribution advantage - instant reach to a huge installed base - and the heightened safety and trust burden that comes with putting conversational AI in front of young users by default.