Meta (META-2.36%) believes that the source of 97% of its revenue can be fully automated by AI: its ads.
By the end of 2026, Mark Zuckerberg’s company will employ AI to work with brands to create their own advertising — imagery, video and text — and then target them to specific users on Meta platforms, according to The Wall Street Journal. The ads could even be made specific to geolocation and time, reflecting local scenery or weather conditions in the imagery.
Along with potentially making design departments obsolete, it could disrupt video production as well. Major advertising companies such as Omnicom Group saw their stock prices drop following the news.
On an earnings call for Meta’s Q1 2025 report in April, Zuckerberg said, “AI has already made us better at targeting and finding the audiences that will be interested in [businesses’] products. I think that this is really redefining what advertising is — into an AI agent that delivers measurable business results at scale.”
Meta’s first-quarter revenue was up 16% year-over-year, to $42.31 billion. Ad impressions were up 5%; the average ad price increased 10% year-over-year. Use of AI tools in creating ads increased by 30% that quarter.
“If we deliver on this vision, then over the coming years, I think that the increased productivity from AI will make advertising a meaningfully larger share of global GDP than it is today,” Zuckerberg said then.
The company is putting its money where Zuckerberg’s mouth is, investing $65 billion in AI infrastructure in 2025.
Last month, Zuckerberg was touting the idea of AI friends and chatbot therapists as a solution to the loneliness epidemic.
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