Meta will use correspondence with its AI to personalize ads

Advertising on Facebook, Instagram and other applications owned by Meta Platforms will become even more targeted. Now, personalized ad settings and the delivery of recommended content in Meta's social networks will be influenced by the user's history of interaction with the company's AI products, according to Meta's blog.

Meta Platforms, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, plans to start using users' data from their conversations with AI for targeting in advertising and issuing recommended content on social networks from December 16, the company announced. As early as October 7, users will begin receiving notifications of a policy change that will make this possible. The change will primarily affect the audience of the Meta AI app, which is used by more than a billion people every month.

"Whether it's voice chat or texting with our AI features, this update will help us improve the recommendations we provide to users on our platforms so they're more likely to see content they're genuinely interested in - and less likely to see content they're not," Ma said in a statement.

The company has long been adapting the feeds of users of Facebook, Instagram and its other services based on their activity. But now, behavior within AI products will also be built into that system, Barron's notes. According to The Information, Meta has also been in discussions with Google about using Gemini's models to boost its advertising business.

Advertising remains the company's main source of revenue. In 2024, Meta's total revenue was $164.5 billion, of which $160.6 billion came from advertising. FactSet analysts expect advertising revenue to grow to $193.6 billion and total revenue to $196.7 billion in 2025.

Meta is also ramping up investments in AI infrastructure. In July, the company raised its capital expenditure forecast for 2025 from $60-65 billion to $66-72 billion.

"We are particularly positive about the online advertising market as it relies on several drivers. First and foremost, AI is driving user engagement, advertising effectiveness and reach. In addition, we expect the segment to start benefiting from a wave of customer acquisition spending from companies originally built around AI," Mizuho analyst Lloyd Walmsley wrote in a Sept. 30 note (quoted in Barron's).

Meta could catch up to Google Search in ad revenue by the end of 2026 thanks to "truly gravity-defying results in advertising," according to Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik.

He noted that Meta earned about 45 cents on every additional dollar spent on digital advertising in the last quarter. That boosted its market share to 37%, up from 35% a year earlier. This growth was made possible by "a double-digit improvement in both user engagement and ad effectiveness." Thus, Meta is already coming on the heels of Google. While Google Ads gets 45% of advertisers' current digital ad spend, for every new ad dollar, Alphabet gets only 30 cents, according to Bernstein. If this trend continues, Meta could become the dominant player in the digital advertising market, Shmulik said.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor