Chat initiative: national messenger MAX has teamed up with Russia's largest AI bot

VK's national messenger MAX has received support from the GigaChat 2.0 AI service with all available functions - they include creating texts and images, transcribing audio messages, and briefly retelling articles, videos, and other forms of content. While the national messenger is in beta status, it has already become one of the first platforms where the GigaChat 2.0 toolkit is available to the audience for free.

What is the second generation GigaChat?

GigaChat 2.0 from Sberbank became available on April 14 in basic and extended versions. The AI bot developers noted that 2.0 significantly increased the level of all the skills of the model thanks to a new approach to learning. In particular, artificial intelligence has learned to recognize voice audio files, analyze user requests more deeply, process more text, and recognize images. It is also noted that all the features of GigaChat are available in one product and on any compatible device, so the user does not need to switch between different services.

The MAX press service told Izvestia that one of the first platforms where GigaChat 2.0 appeared was the Russian digital platform MAX from VK. This is an application with a built-in messenger, mini-apps, chatbot designers, an online recording system and a payment service. With the help of the neural network assistant, MAX users can write texts — an AI bot, for example, will help to come up with congratulations or a response to any message. He is also able to create images: from avatars to birthday cards, he can decipher long audio messages and provides answers to them, allows you to receive short retellings of videos, articles and answers to many questions.

The business model range includes two API versions for the user to choose from - GigaChat 2 Pro and GigaChat 2 MAX.

— Our service has made an important step forward both in terms of technology and user experience. In the new version, we have significantly expanded the functionality and improved the quality. Of course, we expect audience growth and strive to make GigaChat the AI platform of first choice for users," said Anton Gorshkov, CPO of GigaChat B2C.

The bot supports working with multiple files in a single dialog, including uploading a document with up to 200 pages of A4 text to the chat. He is able to work with up-to-date data from the Internet in real time, analyzes queries more deeply, giving concise answers with links to sources. The AI will find information for the person, filter out the main thing and back up its conclusions with links — you can follow them if the user needs additional information. Among other things: it can analyze any picture, for example, a housing and communal services receipt, and explain what the user pays for and how much.

GigaChat 2.0 also learned how to work with the analysis of voice messages and audio files. The AI model perceives audio data directly, without intermediate transformation into text. This allows her to highlight the main thing more precisely and answer questions about the content. It is enough to attach a recording and formulate a request, for example: "listen to the audio recording and tell me what my colleague might not like about my words" or "Write down a list of medications and recommendations from my doctor's voicemail." The bot will also help musicians to generate both songs and music based on a text query. You can either choose from existing genres, or come up with a mix of different tasks: for example, ask to create "a track in the style of modern youth pop music using pulsating bass, bright synthesizers and dense beats."

How the experts evaluated the novelty

The current version of GigaChat is good "mechanically", it is suitable for routine work, but it does not cope so well with creative tasks so far. However, other domestic solutions also suffer from this, says Ilya Sklyuyev, author of the profile Telegram channel "Non-artificial Intelligence".

— The new version of GigaChat will obviously be distributed at least in the form of a chatbot. Sber actively integrates new features into it, including music generation, video retelling, and others, making the service a universal "Swiss knife" for any task. But it lacks deeper integration with Russian media and platforms. It would be extremely convenient if GigaChat were to be connected to a search for major Russian media and factcheck integrated — it would immediately turn out to be a good tool immersed in Russian reality," Ilya Sklyuyev believes.

According to the expert, the chatbot also needs to work with the context about the user, as it is currently implemented in ChatGPT, which can remember individual facts and use them when generating a response. Personalization gives the user a sense of value — the main thing is that the developer does not forget to embed the "forget" button.

According to Yaroslav Seliverstov, head of the AI Research department at 2035 University, MAX is not just a messenger, but a test drive for the Russian digital ecosystem. It offers an intuitive interface inherited from VK Messenger, which makes it easier for the social network audience to navigate. The platform stands out for its functionality: sending files up to 4 GB (which is twice as much as in Telegram), integrating mini-applications for ordering food and paying bills through the SBP, support for animated stickers and improved voice messages.

— The messenger is convenient for everyday communication, but potential integration with public services and financial transactions will require the introduction of additional measures— for example, biometrics or hardware keys. For now, users should be careful about synchronizing sensitive data, including requests to the chatbot, Yaroslav Seliverstov warned.

According to Daniil Arzhakov, a lecturer at the Faculty of Gaming Industry and Esports at Synergy University, the current MAX functionality is quite predictable and includes the basic features of any messenger: text messages, calls and contacts, while the interface still excessively duplicates information in different tabs. At the same time, the appearance of GigaChat as a MAX bot can make the national messenger more attractive to an advanced audience that actively uses the functions of neural networks and chatbots.