It’s not fun on Snapchat as AI chatbots face backlash from users
Snapchat is another tech company that recently ventured into the AI chatbot race, but it’s fair to say that its journey has been challenging in many ways. The ChatGPT-based platform has received negative reviews from users ever since the company decided to release the chatbot to a wider audience.
An AI chatbot called My AI is available at the top of the Snap user’s screen, which many feel is an invasion of privacy because Snapchat did not ask for their consent before making this addition to the app.
These users have complained that Snapchat has not made it an opt-in feature and instead has introduced a chatbot. Some even want the ability to remove the chatbot from the home screen of the Snapchat app. All of this backlash has had a negative impact on Snapchat’s ratings on app stores (both iOS and Android), with many giving the platform a 1-star rating, which isn’t the best case for any app, let alone Snapchat.
These reviews appear to have coincided with the announcement of the Ai chatbot on April 19, and 24 hours later Snapchat users decided to take matters into their own hands, presumably after trying out the chatbot or seeing it on their home screen.
Snapchat says the My AI app lets users write songs, find the best restaurants, and even take a photo of your garden with the help of an AI chatbot. It’s free for all Snapchat users, but based on social media posts, I feel like Snapchat should have at least reached out to its user base before rolling out the feature to everyone.
These outbursts usually help and force the company to withdraw the feature. For example, Instagram recently decided to enter a 9:16 aspect ratio for images, which did not please users at all. After several incidents of hate directed at the platform, Instagram claimed that it was only testing the feature and was not going to make it available in the public version. Snapchat is unlikely to take such action, but at least giving users the option to disable the chatbot could go a long way toward redeeming its position in the app store.
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