Meta to use AI chats to personalize ads, user content

Meta has announced plans to target personalized ads and user content across Instagram, Facebook, and Threads by collecting the people’s conversations with AI chatbots.

The policy is expected to come into effect on December 16 for all users, excluding those in the UK, South Korea, and European Union.

Under the newly-announced policy, users’ both texts and voice chats with generative AI will be observed and scanned to gain insights into users’ choices, likes, and dislikes.

As per social media giant, the users will be informed about the changes from October 7 and they will not be given any option to opt out of this policy.

“We will soon use your interactions with AI at Meta to personalize the content and ads you see, including things like posts and reels,” Meta said.

“For example, if you chat with Meta AI about hiking, we may learn that you’re interested in hiking... As a result, you might start seeing recommendations for hiking groups, posts from friends about trails, or ads for hiking boots,” the post read.

According to Christy Harris, privacy policy manager at Meta, "People's interactions simply are going to be another piece of the input that will inform the personalization of feeds and ads. We're still in the process of building the first offerings that will make use of this data."

Having been integrated into the company's suite of apps, Meta AI has 1 billion monthly active users.

While speaking at the company's annual shareholder meeting this year CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “Our focus for this year is deepening the experience and making Meta AI the leading personal AI with an emphasis on personalization, voice conversations and entertainment.”

Last month, Meta launched the first-ever consumer-ready smart glasses with in-built display.