Discord Adds OpenAI-Powered Chatbot, Moderation Features

In an effort to “supercharge” conversations with your friends, Discord is adding a slew of new AI features.

The community platform is adding OpenAI’s GPT language model to its Clyde chatbot, which works very similarly to ChatGPT. Clyde is Discord’s default chatbot and currently communicates with users when they commit an error or will respond to “slash” commands on the platform. Soon, it will be able to do more than that.

Clyde, for example, can be summoned within a conversation thread and send a GIF to get the server hyped when a user asks for it. Another example shown by Discord has a user asking whether Clyde can give the user 5 facts about cats, along with other functionality.

Users will not be charged for using the OpenAI features in Discord, at least initially. The company will start rolling out the functionality to a limited number of servers in an alpha release next week.

Beyond the addition of those features to Clyde, Discord is also supplementing its existing AI-powered moderation by integrating OpenAI’s technology. Users were already able to moderate content with AI on the platform.

The company acquired Sentropy, a startup that uses artificial intelligence to detect and report social media harassment, in 2021. Discord said its existing technology has already blocked more than 45 million unwanted messages. By integrating GPT, the company says the AI will be able to better understand the context of messages.

When you’re part of a vibrant Discord community, you know how difficult it is to stay on top of everything. Discord is also using OpenAI’s tools to offer conversation summaries and will also be arriving on a select number of servers next week.

The company also teased out a few other AI-powered features, including Avatar Remix, which will allow users to remix each others’ avatars using generative AI and a collaborative whiteboard that also uses AI.

Discord also announced it would be launching an AI incubator that will fund developers that want to build AI-enabled features for the platform.

“We’re excited about the opportunities for AI to enhance so many facets of human experience, and we can’t wait to see what teams around the world come up with over the years to come,” said Discord’s VP of Platform Ecosystems, Anjney Midha.