Meta to use AI chats to personalize ads

Meta is set to tailor ads and content to users based on their interactions with its generative AI products, including the Meta AI digital assistant. The tech firm announced the update to its recommendation system on Wednesday, noting that it will take effect on December 16. Users will receive notifications of the change from next week.

The development highlights the company’s effort to more closely link its significant investments in generative AI to its core online advertising business. Meta ramped up AI hiring and spending over the summer, projecting in its July Q2 earnings report that these initiatives will push higher expense growth in 2026 compared with 2025.

The tech giant currently provides generative AI capabilities to users via its digital assistant, which is built across its apps, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. Meta AI is also available as a stand-alone app and website.

Users can utilize Meta AI the same way they do with OpenAI’s ChatGPT, asking it to provide directions or generate images based on prompts. The Mark Zuckerberg-helmed company also stated that the digital assistant now has more than 1 billion active monthly users. However, this figure does not specifically refer to the digital assistant standalone app.

Earlier this year, Zuckerberg said that the digital assistant reached 1 billion monthly active users, and added that eventually “there will be opportunities to either insert paid recommendations” or offer “a subscription service so that people can pay to use more compute.”

In the early days of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg and his team famously embraced the motto, “Move fast and break things.” Posters bearing the phrase reportedly lined the walls of the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters, alongside other similarly bold mantras like “Done is better than perfect” and “Fail quicker.” The message was clear for the young company: being first mattered more than getting it right the first time.

Voice and text inputs from Ray-Ban Meta glasses feed into the recommendation engine

Meta’s privacy and data policy manager, Christy Harris, noted during a media briefing that people already assumed the Facebook parent was incorporating generative AI interactions with ad targeting and content recommendations.

“While this is a natural progression of our personalization efforts and will help give us even better recommendations for people, we want to be super transparent about it and provide a heads up before we actually begin using this data in a new way, even if people already thought that we were doing this,” Harris said.

Harris illustrated how the update might affect the content and ads shown on Facebook, Instagram, and other Meta platforms. When users discuss family vacation plans with the digital assistant, the assistant’s responses could shape the Reels short videos they are recommended on Facebook.

“So the Reels that I see on my Facebook feed or other types of content that are recommended to me could include family-friendly travel destinations,” Harris said. “It could include ads for hotels or other signals that would be informed by the conversation that I have had with Meta AI.”

People’s voice interactions with the digital assistant through the company’s Ray-Ban Meta glasses will also influence Meta’s recommendation engine, Harris explained.

She said that whether you’re typing your interactions or using the audio version, those signals will still be incorporated.

Update goes live December 16, with no opt-put for active users

However, the update will not factor in user interactions with Meta AI on WhatsApp unless users link their accounts on the messaging app with other Meta platforms, such as Instagram, Harris added.

Users will not have the option to opt out of the recommendation engine changes, but Harris noted that “if they don’t interact with Meta AI, the update won’t apply to them.”

The tech giant plans to roll out the recommendation update in the UK and EU “following our usual regulatory updates,” Harris said.

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