Meta is preparing to hand over the keys of digital advertising to machines.
The Wall Street Journal reported that by the end of next year, the tech giant plans to let advertisers hand off entire ad campaigns, from creation to targeting, to artificial intelligence.
Meta’s goal is to build an AI-powered system where businesses simply upload a product image, enter a budget, and let the platform generate the ad, image, video, text, then target the audience on Instagram and Facebook. The system will even recommend how much advertisers should spend.
With over 3.4 billion active users across its platforms, Meta sees a massive opportunity. It’s not just about cutting down the workload but scaling ad campaigns with minimal human involvement, tailoring each version of an ad to individual users in real time.
A person in London might see an ad with a rainy backdrop, while someone in Lagos gets the same product in a sunlit setting. All powered by data on location, behaviour, and engagement patterns.
The competitive pressure is real. Snap, Pinterest, and Reddit are pushing their own AI ad tools. And with Google and OpenAI entering the scene with image and video generators, Meta is racing to stay ahead.
However, not everyone is ready to follow. There are talks among marketers about brand safety and creative control. Will AI-generated campaigns reflect a brand’s voice, or dilute it?
Mark Zuckerberg spoke on his goals. “Advertisers need AI products that deliver measurable results at scale,” he said. He added that Meta is working toward “a single interface where businesses can set their goals, set their budgets, and let the system take care of the rest.”
Still, automating the creative process brings questions no algorithm can yet answer. What happens when a generated ad backfires? How do you trace accountability? And most importantly, who gets the final say when the machine speaks louder than the marketer?
