Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be holding his smartphone when he gave a keynote speech at the Meta Connect Annual event held at the company’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California on September 25, 2024.
Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters
Meta It will immediately display ads and other content to users based on its interactions with its digital assistants and related products powered by generative artificial intelligence.
The social media giant announced an update to its recommended system on Wednesday, saying it will take effect on December 16th. Users will receive notifications of changes from October 7th.
The move highlights how Meta is trying to properly tie $1 billion in investments in the core online advertising business to AI.
Meta spent the summer on massive AI employment and spending, and in its second quarter revenue report in July, it said the AI initiative “issues growth in expenses over 2026 outweighing the increase in expenses in 2025.”
The company currently offers users generative AI capabilities through Meta AI Digital Assistant, bundled with apps such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. Meta AI can also be used as a standalone app and website.
Users can interact with Meta AI like Openai’s ChatGpt, providing direction based on prompts and asking them to generate images.
Mark Zuckerberg-Helmed Company also states that Meta AI Digital Assistant currently has over 1 billion active monthly users, but that figure is not specific to the Meta AI Stand-Alone app.
Zuckerberg added in May that Meta AI will reach 1 billion active users each month and will ultimately “have the opportunity to insert paid recommendations” or “providing subscription services to allow us to use more computing.”
MetaPrivacy and Data Policy Manager Christy Harris said in a media briefing that he already assumes Facebook parents are embracing the interaction of AD targeting and content recommendations and generative AI.
“This is a natural advancement in our personalization efforts and helps to provide even better recommendations for people, but even if we already think we’re doing this, we want to be very transparent about it and raise our heads before we actually start using this data in a new way,” Harris said.
Harris provided examples of how the update affects the types of content and ads people may see on Facebook, Instagram and other meta-related apps.
When users chat with Meta AI about how to plan family vacations, the digital assistant response can affect the types of short videos that they might recommend watching on Facebook, for example.
“So the reels you can see in your Facebook feed and other types of content that I recommend to you may include family-friendly destinations,” Harris said. “We can include ads for hotels and other signals that are notified by conversations with Meta AI.”
Harris said the voice interaction with the Meta AI digital assistant when wearing the company’s Ray-Ban Meta Meta Meta Glasses will also affect the company’s recommended engine.
“So, whether you use a keyboard to enter interactions or use an audio version of the interaction, those signals will continue to be used,” she said.
According to Harris, the recommended update does not take into account user interaction with Meta AI via WhatsApp unless you link your messaging service account to other sibling apps.
People cannot opt out of future recommendation engine changes, but “the updates won’t apply,” Harris said, without interacting with Meta AI.
Meta will “debut the recommended updates for EU users following the usual regulatory updates,” Harris said to UK and EU users.
View: How to save the internet.
