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Instagram AI Studio: Create Custom Chatbots With Your Personality
Meta’s new feature allows users to create custom chatbots with unique personalities that can interact with fans and help in role-play scenarios.
Meta has unveiled a new tool called AI Studio, enabling users to create virtual characters with personalized traits and interests, including versions of themselves that can interact with audiences through direct messages.
AI Studio is initially rolling out to Instagram Business account holders and will be available to all Meta users in the United States within the next few weeks. The platform will be accessible via ai.meta.com/ai-studio and the Instagram app, as well as through WhatsApp, Messenger, and browsers.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO, envisions users creating custom AI chatbots for entertainment purposes or as personal support tools. For instance, chatbots could be used for role-play scenarios like negotiating a pay rise or resolving a conflict with a friend. These kinds of interactions provide a safe space for users to practice and receive feedback on various social situations.
To ensure responsible use, AI Studio includes features that allow users to restrict who can interact with their chatbots and control the topics they discuss. The platform’s usage policy also explicitly prohibits the creation of chatbots deemed hateful, explicit, or illegal.
In a blog post, Meta highlighted several chatbots developed by celebrities using AI Studio. For example, chef Marc Murphy created a chatbot named “Eat Like You Live There!” to offer dining recommendations, while photographer Angel Barclay designed “What Lens Bro,” a bot providing photography tips.
Also Read: Top Free AI Chatbots Available In The Middle East
Meta’s AI Studio handbook provides guidance on customizing chatbots, allowing users to input a detailed description, choose a name, and upload an image. They can also specify how bots should respond to particular prompts. The system, leveraging Meta’s powerful Llama model, improvises responses based on these instructions.
In addition to AI Studio, Meta also introduced another innovative tool, known as Segment Anything Model (SAM) 2. The technology can identify and track the contents of images and videos, which Zuckerberg demonstrated by showcasing its ability to monitor cattle on his vast ranch in Kauai. The Facebook founder also noted that SAM2 has broader applications, such as studying coral reefs, natural habitats, and landscape changes.
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Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.
Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.
The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.
Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.
Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget
The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.
Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
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