Big Brother season 26: Chenbot explored

Big Brother season 26 aired part 1 of its season premiere on Wednesday, July 17, 2024. During the segment, long-running host Julie Chen Moonves welcomed the first eight house guests who will spend the next 90 days on the show.

Ahead of the season premiere, Julie Chen Moonves took to social media to remind them to tune in for the episode on the show's official Instagram account. As she made the announcement, an AI hologram appeared behind her, and the two continued to give the audience a message and constantly interrupted one another.

The 7-foot AI hologram aligns with the show's latest Artificial intelligence theme and is called a ChenBot.

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Big Brother season 26's Chenbot is named after Julie Chen Moonves nickname

ChenBot, Julie Chen Moonves' AI hologram introduced to fans before the season premiere, is based on the host's nickname given to her by a friend years ago.

In 2015, during a conversation with People Magazine, the CBS celebrity and journalist explained how she started being referred to as ChenBot. She said that when Big Brother first aired, they had to let viewers know what was happening and constantly update them about the numerous fights in the house.

"We realized week after week after week we always needed that "But First" let the viewers know this is what you really gotta listen to and at that point, I was doing news in the mornings and Big Brother at night and I was used to my who's I'm not gonna show anyone how I feel about anything," Julie said.

At the time, she added that one of her friends had called her and said:

"You know they call you the Chenbot because you deliver that line "But First" the same exact way, week after week after week."

The realization made the Big Brother host realize that she was the Chenbot. She added that she "embraced" her inner robot because all the criticism "was dead on."

In a recent conversation with Entertainment Weekly, the host spoke about what fans could expect from Big Brother season 26.

"My bold prediction of something that's going to happen on Big Brother this summer is I get involved in the game like never before. You're going to see a whole new side to the Chenbot," she said.

Julie's hologram is a product of Proto Hologram. CBS described Proto Hologramas as the world's "first and leading holographic communications and AI-powered spatial computing platform." It added that with the help of Chenbot, they could "randomly pop up" and terrorize the contestants.

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More about the CBS show

Season 26 premiered on Wednesday, July 17, 2024, and welcomed the first eight contestants into the house. Unlike its previous seasons, the segment was not live-telecasted and is set to take place over two days, with episode 2 airing on Thursday, July 18, 2024.

The first eight contestants who entered the show in Wednesday's episode were:

• Rubina Bernabe
• Joseph Rodriguez
• Chelsie Baham
• Makensy Manbeck
• Kimo Apaka
• Tucker Des Lauriers
• Angela Murray
• Cam Sullivan-Brown

These eight Big Brother houseguests were asked if they wanted a 17th participant to join them in the house and were introduced to Ainsle. Four people voted her in while the other four said 'No.' Julie Chen Moonves then revealed that Ainsle was an AI-generated robot and that the voting ceremony was the premise for a challenge.

Those who voted to bring Ainsle in competed in an upgrade challenge, and the others participated in a downgrade challenge. Although the upgrade and the downgrade were not revealed, Makensy won the upgrade, while Chelsie would have to downgrade her time on the show.

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Tune in on Thursday, July 18, to watch episode 2 of Big Brother season 26 on CBS.