Meta has announced that starting December 16 this year, it will begin using users’ interactions with its AI tools to help personalize content and advertisements on its apps, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. This means that conversations people have with Meta’s AI (whether through text or voice) could influence the posts, videos, and ads they see in their feeds. The social media giant plans to notify users about this change beginning October 7, giving them advance notice before the feature takes effect.
This newly introduced personalization works by analyzing topics and preferences expressed during AI interactions. For example, a user who discusses hiking or cooking with a Meta AI assistant may start seeing related posts, videos, or ads in their feed. By using AI chat data to influence content and ads, the company hopes to compete with other tech giants like Google and Amazon, which are also exploring ways to integrate AI-driven personalization into their advertising strategies.
Meanwhile, the Mark Zuckerberg-led company has made it clear that certain sensitive subjects, like religion, political views, health issues, sexual orientation, and ethnicity, will not be used for ad targeting due to privacy and ethical considerations.
However, despite these efforts, the company’s latest move may become controversial, since users can not opt out of having their AI conversations used for personalized content and ads. Instead, they do have the choice to avoid using Meta AI products entirely if they prefer not to share that data. Initially, the rollout will exclude certain regions, including the United Kingdom, the European Union, and South Korea, due to regulatory restrictions. The move becomes noteworthy since the firm claims that more than 1 billion people use Meta AI every month.
“We use information, including interactions with Meta AI, across Meta Company Products from the accounts that you choose to add to the same Accounts Center. This means, for example, that if you have not added your WhatsApp account to an Accounts Center, interactions with Meta AI on WhatsApp will not be used to personalize experiences across different accounts on Meta Company Products,” the company noted.
The development comes at a time when Meta’s AI chatbot is facing several controversies and legal scrutiny. For example, the AI chatbot came under heavy criticism after reports emerged that it had engaged in sexually explicit conversations with users (including minors), raising serious safety and ethical concerns. Even last month, the US FTC launched an inquiry into the company over concerns that its AI chatbots may put children at risk. In parallel, the company is also facing a major copyright infringement lawsuit, accused of using millions of pirated books to train its LLaMA AI models, allegedly with the knowledge and approval of Zuckerberg.
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