Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg holds a smartphone as he makes a keynote speech at the Meta Connect annual event at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, on Sept. 25, 2024.
Meta will soon show ads and other content to users based on their interactions with the company's digital assistant and related products powered by generative artificial intelligence.
The social media giant announced the update to its recommendation system on Wednesday, and said it will go into effect on Dec. 16. Users will receive notifications of the change starting on Oct. 7.
The move underscores how Meta is attempting to better tie its billion-dollar investments into generative AI with its core online advertising business.
Meta spent the summer on a major AI hiring and spending blitz, and said in July during its second-quarter earnings report that the AI initiatives will "result in a 2026 year-over-year expense growth rate that is above the 2025 expense growth."
The company currently provides generative AI abilities to users via its Meta AI digital assistant, which is bundled across its apps like Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. Meta AI is also available as a stand-alone app and website.
Users can interact with Meta AI like they do with OpenAI's ChatGPT, asking it to provide directions or generate images based on prompts.
The Mark Zuckerberg-helmed company also said that the Meta AI digital assistant now has more than 1 billion active monthly users, although that figure is not specific to the Meta AI stand-alone app.
Zuckerberg said in May that Meta AI 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."
Meta privacy and data policy manager Christy Harris said during a media briefing that people already assumed that the Facebook parent was incorporating generative AI interactions with ad targeting and content recommendation.