Meta's AI Revolution: Automating Ad Creation by 2026

Meta Wants AI to Handle Every Part of Ad Creation. Here's What That Means

Macy has been working for CNET for coming on 2 years. Prior to CNET, Macy received a North Carolina College Media Association award in sports writing. Meta is diving even deeper into artificial intelligence. According to an exclusive Wall Street Journal report released Monday, the company behind Facebook and Instagram is developing AI systems that could eventually fully automate the process of creating and buying ads on those popular sites. This means no human copywriters, designers or media buyers will be involved. It's a controversial move that could shake up the $600 billion global ad industry. The announcement also raises fresh questions about creativity, accuracy and the future of marketing jobs. A representative for Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Read more: What Is Meta AI? Everything to Know About the Tech Giant's AI Tools Seemingly, Meta's end goal is to create a system that lets businesses simply explain their product or marketing ideas, alongside a budgeting goal, to the AI-driven ad tools and then the machine takes over from there. That means AI generates ad copy, visuals, targeting strategies and even media placement decisions, all without human intervention. In the short term, this would start with AI making suggestions or streamlining parts of the ad process. But over time, Meta reportedly wants AI to be capable of managing entire campaigns on its own, from start to finish. Meta's spokesperson told the Journal that advertisers would remain "in control" of their campaigns, but the broader vision paints a future where AI is the creative director, media planner and performance analyst all in one. AI is central to Meta's long-term strategy. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called AI the company's "single largest investment area," and with competitors like Google and Amazon also building AI-powered ad systems, Meta is racing to claim its stake in the game. This also aligns with Meta's broader ambitions to weave AI across its platforms. Meta has already integrated its Meta AI chatbot across Instagram, Facebook, Messenger and WhatsApp, explored creating AI avatars on Instagram, and worked generative AI tools into its apps, so automating advertising is just one more piece of a much larger puzzle. Read more: How to Opt Out of Instagram and Facebook Using Your Posts for AI The effort builds on Meta's existing suite of AI-powered ad tools, like Advantage+ and generative tools introduced in 2023. Those features already allow marketers to automatically create image backgrounds, write copy variations and test ad formats. What's coming next could push those tools into full autonomy. According to Meta, this isn't just about improving efficiency, it's about scale. Meta claims small businesses would be the key beneficiary of this AI approach, especially those lacking the time or resources to hire marketing teams. The idea is that AI can level the playing field between small businesses and multi-million dollar companies. "In the not-too-distant future, we want to get to a world where any business will be able to just tell us what objective they're trying to achieve, like selling something or getting a new customer, how much they're willing to pay for each result, and connect their bank account and then we just do the rest for them," Zuckerberg said during Meta's annual shareholder meeting last week. While Zuckerberg is calling this "a redefinition of the category of advertising," critics are already raising concerns. Mainly, media and ethics experts warn that fully automating ad creation could open the door to misinformation, biased targeting and further erosion of accountability in digital advertising. AI isn't immune to mistakes or manipulation, and can be used to spread harmful messaging, such as AI-generated deepfakes. Read more: Trump Signs Bill Banning Deepfakes, Nonconsensual Images Critics are not just concerned with the accuracy for AI-driven ads, they're also worried about the future of traditional ad agencies and marketing jobs. Meta claims that its focus on AI-driven ads is not intended to wipe out ad companies and their employees. Alex Schultz, the chief marketing officer and vice-president of analytics at Meta, has said these AI systems are meant to assist ad agencies and he doubled down on the claim that this will be an asset to small and medium-sized businesses. "We believe in the future of agencies," Schultz wrote in a recent LinkedIn post. "We believe AI will enable agencies and advertisers to focus precious time and resources on the creativity that matters. While we think there will ultimately be more automation in marketing, the role that agencies play is going to become ever more important through their ability to plan, execute and measure across platforms." If you're a business owner, marketer or even just a regular social media user, you're going to feel the ripple effects. You can expect to see more ads that were built by AI machines and possibly tailored to your interests in ways that feel more personal, even if no human ever touched them.

Meta wants AI to automate every step of the ad production process - report

AI-generated video in advertising has proved a perilous endeavor to date. Now, imagine AI generating everything from concept to video assets to sound. In the not-too-distant future, full-length video ads could be generated entirely by artificial intelligence. That's Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's vision, anyway. By the end of 2025, Meta is aiming to provide brands with the AI tools they'll need to completely automate the advertisement production process, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. Also: The best AI image generators: Gemini, ChatGPT, Midjourney, and more Advertising is Meta's primary revenue stream, and the company has already introduced some AI tools that allow brands to modify and personalize their ads. But now the company reportedly wants to expand those capabilities, making it possible for AI to create ads from the ground up -- generating everything from concept to video assets to sound. AI has long been leveraged in the advertising sector, but this has taken place mostly behind the scenes. For example, brands rely on algorithms to forecast consumer behavior, to tailor campaign messaging to specific audiences, and -- since the arrival of ChatGPT -- to generate ad copy. Also: Bing adds OpenAI's Sora video generator - and it's free AI-generated video in ads has been a perilous endeavor. Some early efforts, like the unintentionally haunting Toys R' Us homage to its founder, was created using OpenAI's Sora and met with widespread ridicule online. A Volkswagen ad that used generative AI to create a deepfake version of the late Brazilian singer Elis Regina also stirred controversy around matters of consent. But as the quality of AI-generated video has continued to improve, it's become difficult to imagine that it won't eventually automate at least some critical roles in industries such as filmmaking and advertising. Models like Runway's Gen-4 and Google's Veo 3 are able to generate photorealistic video from text prompts, offering brands glimpses of a future in which they'll be able to dramatically save on expenses once devoted to location scouting, huge film crews, and production costs. Meta does not yet know what tools it has in mind to fully automate the ad production process. But as WSJ notes in its report, such tools would likely be most useful to small and midsize businesses that currently lack the budget for larger-scale ad productions. Like every major tech developer, Meta is unlikely to declare that its new AI-powered advertising tools will displace human workers. Rather, it will almost certainly position them as automated assistants, augmenting human creativity. Also: AI doesn't have to be a job-killer. How some businesses are using it to enhance, not replace This has been a recurring refrain from tech companies as their powerful new generative AI tools start to reshape creative industries. OpenAI, for example, has continually asserted that its models will empower, rather than replace, human voice actors. (Disclosure: Ziff Davis, ZDNET's parent company, filed an April 2025 lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.) As AI-generated video tools continue to improve, humans will likely need to remain in the loop, if only as overseers. Even the most powerful models are still prone to the occasional hallucination, and they require careful prompting (which has become something of an art form in and of itself). As Meta and its competitors keep rolling out new and more advanced AI tools to advertisers, brands will need to remain flexible, shifting the requirements of particular roles and teams to adapt to the rise of new forms of automation.

Sorry, Ad Execs, AI Is Also Coming for You As Meta Eyes Ads Made Entirely by AI

Expect to see more AI-generated ads in your Facebook, Instagram, and Threads feeds in the future. According to The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, Meta is on track to offer a fully AI-powered ad service by the end of 2026. According to the report, Meta is developing a tool that takes advertisers through every step of the process, from ad ideation to publication. An advertiser could provide an image of a product and ask AI to create a photo, text, or video ad, for instance. It would then publish them and target specific audiences through services like Facebook or Instagram. An example used in the report is that those who live in a snowy location could see an ad for a car driving up a mountain, while those who live in a city may get one where the car drives through an urban environment. It may even allow advertisers to tailor specifically to your location. Advertising accounted for over 97% of Meta's overall revenue in 2024, the Journal says. Meta believes combining AI with all the targeted data it has on users will help it become an even bigger destination for advertisers, particularly mid-size companies with smaller budgets. As CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last month, "[It's a] redefinition of the category of advertising." We'll have to see if this results in a quality drop if footage is generated with no human input.

Meta aims to fully automate advertising with AI by 2026, WSJ reports

June 2 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab aims to allow brands to fully create and target advertisements with its artificial intelligence tools by the end of next year, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. The social media company's apps have 3.43 billion unique active users globally and its AI-driven tools help create personalized ad variations, image backgrounds and automated adjustments to video ads, making it lucrative for advertisers. A brand could provide a product image and a budget, and Meta's AI would generate the ad, including image, video and text, and then determine user targeting on Instagram and Facebook with budget suggestions, the report said. Meta also plans to let advertisers personalize ads using AI, so that users see different versions of the same ad in real time, based on factors such as geolocation, according to the report. The owner of Facebook and Instagram, whose majority of revenue comes from ad sales, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Social media firms such as Snap (SNAP.N), opens new tab, Pinterest (PINS.N), opens new tab and Reddit (RDDT.N), opens new tab are increasingly investing in AI and machine learning tools to attract advertisers in an intensely competitive and crowded digital ad market. Technology firms such as Google and OpenAI have also launched video and image-generation AI tools, but their widespread adoption in advertising remains in doubt as marketers weigh concerns over brand safety, creative control and quality. CEO Mark Zuckerberg stressed that advertisers needed AI products that delivered "measurable results at scale" in the not-so-distant future. He added that the company aimed to build an AI one-stop shop where businesses can set goals, allocate budgets and let the platform handle the logistics. Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Suggested Topics:Artificial Intelligence

Facebook and Instagram owner Meta to enable AI ad creation by end of next year

Move sends shock waves through traditional media industry by posing threat to advertising agencies The owner of Facebook and Instagram is to help advertisers to fully create and target campaigns using artificial intelligence tools by the end of next year, in a move that sent shock waves through the traditional marketing industry. Mark Zuckerberg's Meta, which also owns WhatsApp, aims to directly target brands' marketing budgets, posing a threat to the advertising and media agencies that handle client campaigns and budgets. The AI tools under development, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, will allow brands using Meta's advertising platform to create ads using a product image and a planned marketing spend. Meta's platform already offers some AI tools that allow advertisers to tweak existing ads before they appear on Facebook and Instagram. However, the new tools could disintermediate the traditional advertising creation, planning and buying roles played by agencies, as well as open up a long tail of advertisers with small budgets that cannot afford to retain marketing services companies. The AI tools would create the entire ad - including imagery, video and text - and also target it to users in line with a client's budget. Targeting such as geolocation would enable an advertisement for a holiday company, for example, to be tailored to offer deals specifically related to users' likely destinations of interest. Investors quickly sold off some of the world's largest marketing services as news of Meta's planned AI rollout, which could significantly swell the $160bn (£118bn) the company already makes annually from advertising, emerged on Monday. Shares in WPP dropped 3% in early trading, while the French companies Publicis Groupe and Havas suffered 3.9% and 3% falls respectively. Zuckerberg, who is heavily focused on driving AI-powered advertising, has referred to the development of new tools as "a redefinition of the category of advertising". In April, the company updated its outlook on spending for the next year with plans to invest between $64bn and $72bn in capital expenditure, including the cost of building out AI infrastructure. That was up from $65bn the company originally said it expected to spend in 2025.

Meta is going all-in on AI advertising

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.

Meta Aiming to Fully Automate Advertising With AI by 2026: Report

Zuckerberg last week stressed that advertisers needed AI products Meta Platforms aims to allow brands to fully create and target advertisements with its artificial intelligence tools by the end of next year, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. The social media company's apps have 3.43 billion unique active users globally and its AI-driven tools help create personalised ad variations, image backgrounds and automated adjustments to video ads, making it lucrative for advertisers. A brand could provide a product image and a budget, and Meta's AI would generate the ad, including image, video and text, and then determine user targeting on Instagram and Facebook with budget suggestions, the report said. Meta also plans to let advertisers personalise ads using AI, so that users see different versions of the same ad in real time, based on factors such as geolocation, according to the report. The owner of Facebook and Instagram, whose majority of revenue comes from ad sales, referred to CEO Mark Zuckerberg's public remarks about AI-driven ads, when contacted by Reuters. Zuckerberg last week stressed that advertisers needed AI products that delivered "measurable results at scale" in the not-so-distant future. He added that the company aimed to build an AI one-stop shop where businesses can set goals, allocate budgets and let the platform handle the logistics. Social media firms such as Snap, Pinterest and Reddit are increasingly investing in AI and machine learning tools to attract advertisers in an intensely competitive ad market. Meta's shares were up nearly one percent in morning trading, while stocks of ad giant Interpublic Group and Omnicom Group fell 1.9 percent and 3.2 percent, respectively. Shares of France's Publicis Groupe SA slid 3.8 percent. US-listed shares of WPP, the owner of agencies GroupM, Ogilvy and VM, were down 2.2 percent. Technology firms such as Google and OpenAI have also launched video and image-generation AI tools, but their widespread adoption in advertising remains in doubt as marketers weigh concerns over brand safety, creative control and quality. © Thomson Reuters 2025

Meta to Let Brands Create, Target AI Ads Fully by End of 2026, Report Says

Meta shares are down slightly at market opening but are up more than 10% so far this year entering Monday. Meta Platforms (META) is reportedly planning to allow brands to use artificial intelligence to fully make and target ads by the end of next year. According to The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, Meta is creating ad tools that would allow brands to "present an image of the product it wants to promote along with a budgetary goal, and AI would create the entire ad, including imagery, video and text." The system would also pick the Instagram and Facebook users to target and give suggestions on budget, the report said. Advertising brought in more than 97% of Meta's overall revenue last year, according to the report. Some brands are worried that the AI-generated ads won't look or feel the same as ads made by people, the report added. Meta didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Meta said in April that it plans to boost its capital expenditures this year to $64 billion to $72 billion to grow its AI capacity. Meta shares are down slightly at market opening but are up more than 10% so far this year entering Monday.

Meta aims to fully automate advertising with AI by 2026: Report

Meta also plans to let advertisers personalise ads using AI, so that users see different versions of the same ad in real time, based on factors such as geolocation, according to the report. Social media firms such as Snap, Pinterest and Reddit are increasingly investing in AI and machine learning tools to attract advertisers in an intensely competitive and crowded digital ad market.Meta Platforms aims to allow brands to fully create and target advertisements with its artificial intelligence tools by the end of next year, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. The social media company's apps have 3.43 billion unique active users globally and its AI-driven tools help create personalized ad variations, image backgrounds and automated adjustments to video ads, making it lucrative for advertisers. A brand could provide a product image and a budget, and Meta's AI would generate the ad, including image, video and text, and then determine user targeting on Instagram and Facebook with budget suggestions, the report said. Meta also plans to let advertisers personalise ads using AI, so that users see different versions of the same ad in real time, based on factors such as geolocation, according to the report. The owner of Facebook and Instagram, whose majority of revenue comes from ad sales, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Social media firms such as Snap, Pinterest and Reddit are increasingly investing in AI and machine learning tools to attract advertisers in an intensely competitive and crowded digital ad market. Technology firms such as Google and OpenAI have also launched video and image-generation AI tools, but their widespread adoption in advertising remains in doubt as marketers weigh concerns over brand safety, creative control and quality. CEO Mark Zuckerberg stressed that advertisers needed AI products that delivered "measurable results at scale" in the not-so-distant future. He added that the company aimed to build an AI one-stop shop where businesses can set goals, allocate budgets and let the platform handle the logistics.

Mark Zuckerberg's Meta To Offer Fully Automated AI-Based Ad Creation By 2026: Report - Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)

Meta Platforms Inc. META is set to revolutionize the advertising industry by introducing a fully automated ad creation system powered by artificial intelligence. What Happened: Meta Platforms is planning to roll out a system that will enable brands to design and target ads using AI by the end of 2026. This new AI-powered advertising system is part of Meta's CEO Mark Zuckerberg's vision for the company's future, according to The Wall Street Journal. Meta's current ad platform already uses AI to generate ad variations and make minor tweaks before targeting users on Facebook and Instagram. With the new advertising tools, brands can input a product image and set a budget goal, and AI will generate the complete ad -- covering visuals, video, and copy. It will also determine the ideal Instagram and Facebook audience to target and provide budget recommendations. Meta also intends to let advertisers use AI to tailor ads in real time, showing users different versions of the same ad based on factors like their location. However, several major brands have raised concerns about Meta gaining greater control over their advertising strategies and the effectiveness of AI-generated campaigns. Why It Matters: Meta's move to fully automate ad creation using AI is a significant development in the advertising industry. The company's advertising business is already thriving, with ad impressions increasing by 5% and the average price per ad rising by 10% year-over-year, as reported in its first-quarter results. Last week, Meta announced its plans to roll out its "Early Release" program that would offer a select group of advertisers early access to test its generative AI creative tools ahead of a wider launch. Meta is already seeing encouraging results from its existing AI-powered ad targeting tools. However, the levy of President Donald Trump's tariffs is likely to impact the digital advertising strategies of tech giants such as Meta Platforms as well as the ad spending plans of other businesses. The introduction of this AI-powered ad creation system could potentially help Meta Platforms and other affected companies to adapt their advertising strategies in the face of such challenges. Over the past 12 months, the shares of Meta surged 35.60%. READ MORE: Trump Administration Shuts Down A $66 Million Food Stamp Fraud And Bribery Scheme, Arrests USDA Employee And 5 Others - Benzinga Image via Shutterstock Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. METAMeta Platforms Inc$653.830.98%Stock Score Locked: Edge Members Only Benzinga Rankings give you vital metrics on any stock - anytime. Unlock RankingsEdge RankingsMomentum88.04Growth92.83Quality83.63Value35.09Price TrendShortMediumLongOverviewMarket News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

What's Going On With Meta Shares Today? - Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META)

Meta Platforms Inc. META shares are trading higher Monday following reports that the company is preparing to launch a fully automated ad creation system powered by artificial intelligence by the end of 2026. What To Know: The move marks a significant step in CEO Mark Zuckerberg's broader strategy to expand the company's AI capabilities and transform how brands create and deliver advertisements. According to The Wall Street Journal, the planned system will allow businesses to upload a product image and define a budget, after which Meta's AI will handle the rest, generating visuals, videos and ad copy, selecting the target audience on Facebook and Instagram and even recommending budget adjustments. The system is also expected to tailor ad content in real time based on user-specific data such as location. This represents a major evolution from Meta's current tools, which already use AI to produce minor variations of ads and optimize targeting. Meta has also launched an "Early Release" program, giving select advertisers early access to its generative AI tools, which are already delivering positive results. While the shift toward full automation has raised concerns among some large brands about losing control over messaging and strategy, Meta's advertising business continues to perform strongly. In its most recent earnings report, the company noted a 5% increase in ad impressions and a 10% rise in average price per ad year-over-year. The broader context includes trade and policy uncertainty, including potential impacts from President Donald Trump's newly announced tariffs, which could affect ad budgets across the tech sector. Nevertheless, Meta's push into AI-driven ad solutions may help the company and its clients adapt to evolving economic and regulatory conditions. META Price Action: Meta shares were up 3.74% at $671.88 at the time of writing, according to Benzinga Pro. Read Next: Stocks Stall, Commodities Rocket As Trade, Geopolitical Tensions Resume: What's Driving Market Monday? Image Via Shutterstock. METAMeta Platforms Inc$670.943.62%Stock Score Locked: Edge Members Only Benzinga Rankings give you vital metrics on any stock - anytime. Unlock RankingsEdge RankingsMomentum88.04Growth92.83Quality83.63Value35.09Price TrendShortMediumLongOverviewMarket News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Why Meta Platforms Stock Soared on AI News Today | The Motley Fool

Many investors were jumping aboard Meta Platforms (META 3.61%) stock on Monday, so much so that the pricey social media company's shares rose by almost 4%. Much of this was a reaction to a media report stating that Meta would lean heavily on artificial intelligence (AI) to boost its revenue. The stock's rise easily trumped that of the S&P 500 index, which increased 0.4% on the day. Well before market open, The Wall Street Journal published an article asserting that Meta plans to offer its advertisers the chance to craft spots entirely with artificial intelligence (AI). Those users would be able not only to create every aspect of those ads but also to microtarget consumers by harnessing the technology. This would be a significant expansion of Meta's AI tool set, currently available to users but only for a limited set of ad enhancements. Citing unidentified "people familiar with the matter," the financial newspaper said the company aims to roll out the full suite of AI functionalities by the end of 2026. Meta has not yet officially commented on the report. Advertising is front and center of Meta's business as it forms nearly the entirety of its revenue. Assuming the Journal's report is accurate, the company's determined AI push is very encouraging. It shows that management clearly isn't resting on its laurels and is committing notable resources and effort into maintaining its already considerable ad dominance in the social media sphere. I would be very inspired by this news if I were a Meta shareholder.

Meta to Use GenAI to Automate Ad Creation and Targeting | PYMNTS.com

Meta Platforms plans to create and target advertisements using artificial intelligence by the end of 2026. The move is a key element of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's vision for the future evolution of Meta, where advertising remains the core revenue driver, The Wall Street Journal reported Monday (June 2). The development could potentially benefit small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), which represent a large portion of Meta's advertisers and often lack the resources for extensive ad creation efforts, the report said. However, some larger retail brands have expressed caution regarding potentially ceding more control to Meta, amid concerns that AI-generated content may not consistently achieve the quality or specific aesthetic of human-made campaigns, per the report. AI tools sometimes produce distorted visuals that need to be refined, for example. The new AI tools represent an expansion of Meta's offerings, which primarily allow generating variations of existing ads or making minor adjustments. The company intends to enable brands to develop advertising concepts entirely from scratch, according to the report. The proposed workflow involves brands providing a product image and a budgetary goal, after which the AI system would generate a complete ad, including imagery, video and text. The system would also determine optimal targeting for Facebook and Instagram users and suggest budget allocations, the report said. Meta also plans to incorporate AI-powered personalization, allowing users to see different versions of the same ad in real time based on factors such as geolocation, per the report. AI-driven content creation is competitive, with Google, for example, releasing tools such as Veo for video generation, per the report. Many brands use third-party tools like Midjourney and OpenAI's DALL-E for creating ad content across digital platforms, including Meta's. Meta is looking for ways to integrate such third-party capabilities into its own platform. The company's move into AI ad generation follows a reorganization of Meta's AI team. The company announced last month that it is splitting the team into two groups, with one focusing on AI products and the other focusing on foundational AI technology. The reorganization aims to streamline operations and clarify responsibilities. It came as Meta faces challenges attracting top AI talent after losing several researchers to French AI startup Mistral.

Mark Zuckerberg's Meta aims to fully automate advertising with AI by...

Meta Platforms aims to allow brands to fully create and target advertisements with its artificial intelligence tools by the end of next year, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. The social media company's apps have 3.43 billion unique active users globally and its AI-driven tools help create personalized ad variations, image backgrounds and automated adjustments to video ads, making it lucrative for advertisers. A brand could provide a product image and a budget, and Meta's AI would generate the ad, including image, video and text, and then determine user targeting on Instagram and Facebook with budget suggestions, the report said. Meta also plans to let advertisers personalize ads using AI, so that users see different versions of the same ad in real time, based on factors such as geolocation, according to the report. The owner of Facebook and Instagram, whose majority of revenue comes from ad sales, referred to CEO Mark Zuckerberg's public remarks about AI-driven ads, when contacted by Reuters. Zuckerberg last week stressed that advertisers needed AI products that delivered "measurable results at scale" in the not-so-distant future. He added that the company aimed to build an AI one-stop shop where businesses can set goals, allocate budgets and let the platform handle the logistics. Social media firms such as Snap, Pinterest and Reddit are increasingly investing in AI and machine learning tools to attract advertisers in an intensely competitive ad market. Meta's shares were up nearly 2%, while stocks of ad giant Interpublic Group and Omnicom Group fell 3% and 4.3%, respectively. Shares of France's Publicis Groupe SA slid 3.8%. US-listed shares of WPP, the owner of agencies GroupM, Ogilvy and VM, were down nearly 3%. Technology firms such as Google and OpenAI have also launched video and image-generation AI tools, but their widespread adoption in advertising remains in doubt as marketers weigh concerns over brand safety, creative control and quality.

Meta aims to fully automate advertising with AI by 2026, WSJ reports

(Reuters) -Meta Platforms aims to allow brands to fully create and target advertisements with its artificial intelligence tools by the end of next year, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter. The social media company's apps have 3.43 billion unique active users globally and its AI-driven tools help create personalized ad variations, image backgrounds and automated adjustments to video ads, making it lucrative for advertisers. A brand could provide a product image and a budget, and Meta's AI would generate the ad, including image, video and text, and then determine user targeting on Instagram and Facebook with budget suggestions, the report said. Meta also plans to let advertisers personalize ads using AI, so that users see different versions of the same ad in real time, based on factors such as geolocation, according to the report. The owner of Facebook and Instagram, whose majority of revenue comes from ad sales, did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Social media firms such as Snap, Pinterest and Reddit are increasingly investing in AI and machine learning tools to attract advertisers in an intensely competitive and crowded digital ad market. Technology firms such as Google and OpenAI have also launched video and image-generation AI tools, but their widespread adoption in advertising remains in doubt as marketers weigh concerns over brand safety, creative control and quality. CEO Mark Zuckerberg stressed that advertisers needed AI products that delivered "measurable results at scale" in the not-so-distant future. He added that the company aimed to build an AI one-stop shop where businesses can set goals, allocate budgets and let the platform handle the logistics. (Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Leroy Leo)