Meta launches genAI features for ads
This week, Meta announced it is beginning the rollout of generative AI capabilities in Ads Manager. These should be globally available by next year.
These capabilities are:
- Background generation. The creation of multiple ad backgrounds allowing advertisers to choose relevant creative for their targeted audiences.
- Image expansion. Automates the adjustment of image assets to aspect ratios suitable for specific channels like Feed or Reels.
- Text variations. The generation of multiple text options based on the advertiser’s original copy to better reach selected audiences.
Meta has been testing the features in an AI Sandbox, making them available to a small and varied set of advertisers. Feedback includes saving “five or more hours a week,” said Meta.
Meta also reiterated the announcement made at the Connect conference that businesses will soon be able to use AI to generate conversational responses to customers on Messenger and WhatsApp.
GenAI magic. “I think the most interesting part is where it magically finds the right text and combination of elements to maximize ad effectiveness,” said Andrew Frank, VP distinguished analyst at Gartner.
Inserting generative AI into the Facebook (and Instagram) ad workflow is likely to appeal to the smaller businesses that constitute the bedrock of Meta’s advertising business. “Most of it is small brand advertisers and a lot of it is highly targeted, localized, topical content. A lot of the effort for those advertisers is the menial reformatting of videos to fit the right aspect ratio and stuff; so I can certainly see how that would be helpful for smaller organizations,” Frank said.
For the enterprise, it may be the case that ad creation takes place in systems before the ad is deployed in a Meta channel. “If you’re an enterprise, then you’re probably relying on your agency to do a lot of the things