Meta AI for Business: 10x Growth in One Quarter revealed

Meta's business AI tools processed roughly 10 million conversations per week as of late March 2026 up from 1 million at the start of the year. That's a tenfold increase in under three months, a growth rate that puts Meta's enterprise AI ambitions in a different conversation than the company usually gets credit for.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg used the company's first-quarter earnings call on Wednesday to flag that the current free access model is unlikely to hold.

The growth coincides with Meta's recent expansion of its business AI assistant beta across the US, EMEA, APAC, and LATAM regions. The wider rollout has pushed the tools into more markets simultaneously, accelerating adoption among small and medium-sized businesses that are using Meta's messaging platforms primarily WhatsApp for customer communication.

CFO Susan Li confirmed on the call that more than 8 million advertisers are now using at least one of the company's generative AI ad creative tools, with particularly strong uptake among smaller businesses.

The performance data is notable: advertisers using Meta's video generation feature saw more than 3% higher conversion rates in tests. That figure may sound modest, but at the scale Meta operates $56.3 billion in Q1 revenue, up 33% year-on-year a 3% conversion lift across millions of ad accounts represents significant commercial impact.

Meta is also launching the open beta of Meta Ads AI Connectors this week, which will allow advertisers to link their Meta ad account directly to an AI agent, adding another layer of automation to campaign management.

For now, Meta's business AI tools are free for most businesses on its messaging apps. Zuckerberg indicated on the call that this is a deliberate scaling strategy rather than a permanent offering.

"As we make more progress, we expect that we will also work towards establishing a longer-term monetisation model," he said.

Meta reported a profit of $26.8 billion in Q1 2026, up from $16.6 billion in the same period last year. Revenue from its apps reached $885 million in the quarter, driven by paid WhatsApp messaging and app subscriptions. The company is also testing a WhatsApp Plus subscription tier offering cosmetic features like custom icons and themes .