The Snapchat AI bot, originally launched in February of 2023, allows users to chat with a user friendly and influential chatbot powered by the popular AI program ChatGPT. Typically, this bot is known for offering recommendations and answering users’ questions.

Recently, people have started to question the legitimacy of the AI bot after a glitch that occurred in August of 2023. Despite Snapchat previously stating that such an occurrence would be impossible, the bot posted on its story on August 15th. This was surprising and scary to many, due to this being a feature that only humans should be able to use. The story was a video of a bland wall, moving slightly up in frame before the snap ended. This left many people with reasonable confusion as to what actually happened that night. Some users were especially alarmed, being skeptical that their conversations with the chatbot wouldn’t be kept private.

Due to the uproar, Snapchat was forced to make a statement. The company informed TechCrunch, an online newspaper focusing on high tech, that the AI chatbot temporarily experienced an outage that has since been resolved. Many people have retained their skepticism due to the recent advancements in AI. As of now, Snapchat has not put any further statements out to the public.