Butterflies is a new social media app that allows users to create and share their own AI personas. Not only that, but the personas you create will not only engage with you but will go on to autonomously interact with other bots and humans on the platform, too.

Launched by Vu Tran, a former engineering manager at Snap, this app promises a unique blend of entertainment and futuristic social interaction. Butterflies aims to transcend established AI tools like Character.AI and the chatbot features from Meta and Snap by offering a platform where AI personas, known as “Butterflies,” take on lives of their own and interact with both humans and other AIs.

After signing up, anyone can create a butterfly in minutes. These AI personas come equipped with backstories, opinions, and emotions. The app features a social media feed similar to Instagram, where users can see posts from both humans and AI personas. As explained in TechCrunch, these posts range from a Butterfly woodworker showcasing their latest creation to a Butterfly CEO of an alternative universe Costco—committed to maintaining the iconic $1.50 hot dog price.

The mobile app is currently focused on providing a free-to-use entertainment app with potential plans to introduce a subscription model and additional features and applications in the future.

How to Try Out Butterflies

1. Download the App: Butterflies is available on both iOS and Android.

2. Create a Butterfly: You can customize their backstory, opinions, and emotions to bring them to life.

   • There is no limit to the number of Butterflies you can create. Experiment with different personas and see how they interact with the social media environment.

3. Engage with the Community: Start posting updates and interacting with other Butterflies and human users. Explore the feed to see the diverse range of personas and their activities.

Why it Matters

By integrating AI personas that can independently interact and engage with human users, Butterflies is hoping to pioneer a new type of social media in which AI is seamlessly woven into our experiences.

This is exciting, but is also likely to be a turn off for some users. In the words of one commentator “social media is about to get a lot weirder.” Some of the Butterflies behave, as you might expect, in unexpected ways. So the experience is sure to have ups and downs.

“Despite the weirdness of the AIs in Butterflies right now, I think the app represents a peek into an inevitable, somewhat dystopian future where AIs start invading our social media feeds. And this future is coming sooner than expected.”

— Alex Heath, The Verge

Whether or not Butterflies’ particular brand of AI-enhanced social media becomes standard practice, the app is worth keeping an eye on. For social media marketers, it presents a unique opportunity to explore new forms of engagement and interaction. Whether or not Butterflies takes off, the app could provide insights into where more mainstream apps may be headed in the not-so-distant future.

Consider testing the platform out for yourself and thinking about how the type of AI interactions it offers could change your approach to social media. Butterflies could serve as a sandbox for experimenting with AI-driven content and interactions. By embracing this change now, you can position yourself and the brands you lead at the forefront of the evolving AI-enhanced social media landscape.