Meta greenlights Facebook, Instagram ads based on your AI chats
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.
Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters
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.
“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 provided an example of how the update could influence the kinds of content and ads people may see across Facebook, Instagram and other Meta-related apps.
When users chat with Meta AI about how to plan their family vacations, the digital assistant’s responses could influence the kinds of Reels short videos they may be recommended to watch on Facebook, for instance.
“So the Reels that I see on my Facebook feed or other types of content that is 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 Meta AI digital assistant when wearing the company’s Ray-Ban Meta glasses will also influence the company’s recommendation engine, Harris said.
“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.
The recommendation update will not take into account user interactions with Meta AI via WhatsApp unless people link their accounts on the messaging service to other sibling apps like Instagram, Harris said.
People will not be able to opt out of the upcoming recommendation engine change, but if they don’t interact with Meta AI, the “update won’t apply to them,” Harris said.
Meta plans to debut the recommendation update to users in the U.K. and the EU “following our usual regulatory updates,” Harris said.
WATCH: How to save the Internet.
CEO of Palantir Technologies Alex Karp attends the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit, at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S., July 15, 2025.
Nathan Howard | Reuters
It’s been a tough November for Palantir.
Shares of the software analytics provider dropped 16% for their worst month since August 2023 as investors dumped AI stocks due to valuation fears. Meanwhile, famed investor Michael Burry doubled down on the artificial intelligence trade and bet against the company.
Palantir started November off on a high note.
The Denver-based company topped Wall Street’s third-quarter earnings and revenue expectations. Palantir also posted its second-straight $1 billion revenue quarter, but high valuation concerns contributed to a post-print selloff.
In a note to clients, Jefferies analysts called Palantir’s valuation “extreme” and argued investors would find better risk-reward in AI names such as Microsoft and Snowflake. Analysts at RBC Capital Markets raised concerns about the company’s “increasingly concentrated growth profile,” while Deutsche Bank called the valuation “very difficult to wrap our heads around.”
Adding fuel to the post-earnings selloff was the revelation that Burry is betting against Palantir and AI chipmaker Nvidia. Burry, who is widely known for predicting the housing crisis that occurred in 2008 and the portrayal of him in the film “The Big Short,” later accused hyperscalers of artificially boosting earnings.
Palantir CEO Alex Karp vocally hit the front lines, appearing twice in one week on CNBC, where he accused Burry of “market manipulation” and called the investor’s actions “egregious.”
“The idea that chips and ontology is what you want to short is bats— crazy,” Karp told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
Despite the vicious selloff, Palantir has notched some deal wins this month. That included a multiyear contract with consulting firm PwC to speed up AI adoption in the U.K. and a deal with aircraft engine maintenance company FTAI.
But those announcements did little to shake off valuation worries that have haunted all AI-tied companies in November.
Across the board, investors have viciously ditched the high-priced group, citing fears of stretched valuations and a bubble.
In November, Nvidia pulled back more than 12%, while Microsoft and Amazon dropped about 5% each. Quantum computing names such as Rigetti Computing and D-Wave Quantum have shed more than a third of their value.
Apple and Alphabet were the only Magnificent 7 stocks to end the month with gains.
Sill, questions linger over Palantir’s valuation, and those worries aren’t a new concern.
Even after its steep price drop, the company’s stock trades at 233 times forward earnings. By comparison, Nvidia and Alphabet traded at about 38 times and 30 times, respectively, at Friday’s close.
Karp, who has long defended the company, didn’t miss an opportunity to clap back at his critics, arguing in a letter to shareholders that the company is making it feasible for everyday investors to attain rates of return once “limited to the most successful venture capitalists in Palo Alto.”
“Please turn on the conventional television and see how unhappy those that didn’t invest in us are,” Karp said during an earnings call. “Enjoy, get some popcorn. They’re crying. We are every day making this company better, and we’re doing it for this nation, for allied countries.”
Palantir declined to comment for this story.
WATCH: Palantir CEO Alex Karp: We’ve printed venture results for the average American
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