Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has announced that it will soon utilize user interactions with its AI digital assistant to inform ad targeting and content recommendations across its platforms, including Facebook and Instagram.
CNBC reports that Meta recently announced a significant update to its recommendation systems that will incorporate user interactions with its AI products, including the company’s Meta AI assistant. The change, which goes into effect on December 16, will influence the ads and content people see across Facebook, Instagram, and other Meta platforms. Notifications about the shift will begin rolling out to users on October 7, giving the company a runway to inform its global base ahead of implementation.
Meta AI is now available on the company’s largest platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, and is also available as a standalone app and website. Users can treat the assistant similarly to ChatGPT — asking for directions, generating images from prompts, or researching topics — and those interactions will now inform what content appears in feeds and which ads are served. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg previously said in May that Meta AI reached “1 billion monthly active users,” and reiterated that the company sees opportunities ahead to insert paid recommendations or offer subscription tiers for more compute-intensive usage.
Christy Harris, Meta’s privacy and data policy manager, emphasized transparency around the change, noting that many people already assumed the company was using AI chat signals for personalization. “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 offered a concrete example: a user who chats with Meta AI about planning a family vacation could see more family-friendly travel Reels, hotel ads, and related content. This applies to text and voice interactions, including those made through the company’s Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. “So whether you’re using your keyboard to type your interactions or you are using the audio version of an interaction, those signals will still be used,” she said.
Additionally, while users cannot opt out of the update, Harris clarified that those who simply do not use Meta AI will not be affected: “if they don’t interact with Meta AI, the update won’t apply to them.” Meta plans to roll out the recommendation update to users in the UK and EU “following our usual regulatory updates,” indicating a staggered approach aligned with regional compliance requirements.
Read more at CNBC here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
