Battle of the birds: Twitter’s Indian rival Koo integrates ChatGPT for content creation

• India-based Koo integrates OpenAI’s ChatGPT to help users create posts more quickly and easily.
• The company’s co-founder believes ChatGPT integration could assist in increasing the number of Koo users that actively create content, which stands at 20% currently.

Two and a half years ago, Aprameya Radhakrishna and Mayank Bidawatka launched Koo, an Indian microblogging and social networking service. Their goal was clear; to create an alternative to Twitter and give voice to Indians who have been stuck on WhatsApp groups due to the lack of regional language options on social media apps. Starting with the local Kannada language, Koo is now the second largest multi-lingual microblogging platform available to the world, with over two dozen different languages.

The app, considered an innovator of language-based micro-blogging, has over 50 million downloads. As its website says, Koo is actively leveraged by over 7,500 eminent personalities across various industries. The Twitter alternative is used in 100+ countries across its app and web platform.

Since about 20% of Koo users actively create content on the app, the company intends to increase that figure with the help of ChatGPT, the generative AI chatbot by OpenAI that took the world by storm. In short, the company’s co-founder told Reuters that Koo had integrated ChatGPT into its app to help users more easily create posts.

Since ChatGPT is an AI bot that can create prose in response to prompts, Koo has allowed it to be used directly within the app to help users draft posts about current events, politics, or pop culture, Bidawatka told Reuters in an interview. He also claims that Koo is the first platform to integrate technology into the ability to compose posts. 

Source: Koo

Users can either type their prompts into the ChatGPT tool or use Koo’s voice command feature. “This will help creators get inspiration on what to create,” he said. “They could ask (ChatGPT) for the trending news in their region and then write their thoughts.” According to Bidawatka, the feature will first be available to verified accounts on Koo and eventually become available to all users. 

Koo is also exploring the option of adding labels to indicate whether a post was created with the help of ChatGPT. “I think people should know if the content is AI-generated,” Bidawatka added. The microblogging platform aims to make the most of the recent turmoil at Twitter by expanding globally. 

It has also won support from the ruling government that has promoted the platform as a homegrown alternative to Twitter, which had repeated showdowns with the Indian state following new controversial laws regulating cyberspace.

Koo has yet to rest on its laurels. The company has been eying expansion into global markets, with the most recent being in Brazil, where it was launched last November. With its yellow bird logo, Koo was downloaded over a million times within 48 hours of being launched in Portuguese.

The Bengaluru-based app is also building functions and tools for the platform to get into the US. As part of the development first reported by The Economic Times, the platform will not charge users to get verified and plans on onboarding global leaders. 

Believe! This is our moment! Let's rock it. Do let everyone you know in the US know about Koo 😇 pic.twitter.com/lPBDu5vCmJ

— Aprameya 🇮🇳 (@aprameya) November 16, 2022

Radhakrishna shared that they want to also introduce Koo in Bangladesh, the Philippines, the Middle East, and Africa. He claimed that Koo had surpassed other platforms, namely Truth Social, Gettr, Mastodon, Gab, and Parler, the report added.

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