 "Meta is looking to move ad content creation to fully be outsourced to AI. Image Credit: Reuters")
Meta Platforms is doubling down on artificial intelligence in its advertising business, in a bid to fully automate the creation and targeting of ads by the end of next year, Wall Street Journal reported quoting people familiar with the matter.
The Facebook and Instagram parent company already offers AI tools that generate variations of existing ads, tweak them, and identify suitable audiences. Now, it’s working to let advertisers build entire campaigns from scratch– images, videos, text, and all– using AI.
Meta’s push into fully AI-generated advertising is part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s strategy to transform the company into an AI powerhouse. Advertising remains Meta’s primary source of revenue, accounting for more than 97 per cent of the company’s total income in 2024. That revenue underwrites Meta’s multibillion-dollar investments in data centers, AI chips, and large-scale model training.
With the upcoming ad tools, businesses would be able to upload a product image, set a budget, and let Meta’s AI create the full ad and decide whom to target across Facebook and Instagram. The system would also recommend how to allocate the budget, according to people briefed on the plans.
In a further step toward personalisation, Meta is developing features that tailor ads in real time based on viewer context, such as location. For example, a user in a snowy region might see a car ad featuring the vehicle on a mountain road, while someone in a city might see it navigating urban streets.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsZuckerberg outlined his vision during Meta’s annual shareholder meeting last week, describing it as “a redefinition” of the category of advertising. On a recent podcast, he said the company wants to reach a point where a business can simply state its goal, specify how much it is willing to pay per result, link a bank account—and leave the rest to AI.
Such tools could be a significant boost for small and midsize businesses that lack resources for large-scale ad production. But not everyone is convinced.
Some major brands remain cautious about giving Meta more control over creative processes and worry AI-generated campaigns may lack the polish and brand alignment of ads made by human teams. Meanwhile, technical limitations still exist. AI-generated visuals across the industry are often distorted or inconsistent, requiring additional manual effort to refine.
Meta’s tools are expected to be computationally intensive and may involve custom AI models for individual advertisers, sources said.