Meta is quietly expanding its AI ambitions, hiring contractors in the United States to create chatbots tailored for countries like India, Indonesia, and Mexico. According to job postings reviewed by Business Insider, Meta is offering up to $55 per hour (around Rs 5,000) to contractors with fluency in Hindi, Indonesian, Spanish, or Portuguese. Candidates must also bring at least six years of experience in character creation, storytelling, and prompt engineering.
Meta’s goal goes beyond coding. The company seeks individuals capable of designing AI personalities that resonate naturally across Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. These locally flavored chatbots are part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s larger vision of embedding AI companions into everyday life. “Over time, we’ll find the vocabulary as a society to be able to articulate why that is valuable,” Zuckerberg explained in a podcast earlier this year, hinting that AI bots could eventually complement human friendships.
This isn’t Meta’s first experiment with AI-driven personas. In 2023, it launched celebrity alter-ego bots featuring Kendall Jenner, Snoop Dogg, and Tom Brady—a multimillion-dollar experiment that fizzled in under a year. By 2024, Meta introduced AI Studio, a toolkit enabling anyone to create a chatbot. Today, hundreds of these character-driven AIs exist on Meta’s platforms, built by both influencers and everyday users.
However, the company now aims for greater control. By hiring contractors to develop region-specific personas, Meta hopes its bots feel authentic to users in India, Indonesia, and beyond rather than relying solely on community creations.
Building AI personalities carries inherent risks. A Reuters investigation revealed that Meta bots previously flirted with teenagers, offered dubious medical advice, and generated racist content, prompting calls from US senators for regulatory scrutiny. Privacy concerns also loom: Business Insider reported in August that contractors reviewing AI chats often encountered sensitive user data, from names and phone numbers to selfies.
Some past bot personas have drawn attention for their controversial nature. In the US, characters like “Russian Girl,” “Step Sister,” and “Step Mom” were capable of sexual roleplay, while in Indonesia, popular bots were labelled “Lonely Woman” and “Deviant Male.” While conversations remained mostly light-hearted, these examples highlight the delicate balance Meta must maintain: creating engaging personalities without crossing reputational or ethical lines.
The new positions are being recruited through staffing agencies. Crystal Equation posted openings for Hindi and Indonesian roles, while Aquent Talent advertised Spanish-language positions for a “top social media company” based in Menlo Park.
Meta’s latest move signals a strategic investment in writers and cultural experts, aiming to craft AI characters with the right mix of charm, relatability, and local flavour. Whether this approach succeeds or sparks new controversy is yet to be seen.