Meta AI Now Fuels Targeted Ads on Instagram

Meta is now leveraging user interactions with its AI services to personalize advertisements across its social media platforms, including Instagram and Facebook. The company updated its privacy policy last month to explicitly state that data from conversations, messages, and prompts shared with "AI at Meta" products will be utilized for targeted ads.

This new policy clarifies that information gathered from AI tools like the Meta AI chatbot, integrated into various Meta applications, and even AI features on smart glasses, may now inform ad recommendations. Meta asserts this aims to improve user experience by showing more relevant content and ads, citing an example of a user discussing hiking potentially seeing related product advertisements.

However, the policy update has drawn criticism from 36 privacy and consumer rights organizations. They sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission in late October, requesting an investigation into the practice and urging the FTC to suspend Meta's use of AI-generated data for advertising without an opt-out mechanism. They argue this represents an "aggressive expansion of AI for marketing" and a move towards "surveillance-driven and behavior-changing marketing."