Meta will soon use your conversations with its AI chatbot to sell you stuff

Facebook's Meta logo sign is seen at the company headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., on, Oct. 28, 2021. (AP Photo/Tony Avelar)

Meta will soon use what people tell its artificial intelligence chatbot to get even better at selling them things.

The company said on Wednesday that users’ chats and interactions with Meta AI will soon be used to target them with even more personalized ads. Users will start seeing notices of the change next week, but it won’t kick in until Dec. 16.

Meta already targets users with ads based on what they post and click on, as well as who they’re connected to, on its social media platforms. That data enables Meta to infer what users might buy. But in conversations with Meta’s chatbot, users could directly tell the company about what they’re shopping for or the trip they’ll soon be packing for or what problems they have that a product could solve.

The company will also use data from Meta AI to help decide what kinds of content users see on its site.

Meta says, for example, that if a user talks to the chatbot about hiking, it will know they’re interested in the sport and serve them more hiking-related content. But the change also ups the pressure on Meta to prevent personal or difficult conversations with the AI — for example, about a relationship, given how many people now use chatbots like therapists — from prompting potentially harmful content recommendations.

“Just like other personalized services, we tailor the ads and content you see based on your activity, ensuring that your experience evolves as your interests change,” Meta said in its Wednesday blog post announcing the change. “Many people expect their interactions to make what they see more relevant. Soon, interactions with AIs will be another signal we use to improve people’s experience.”

Meta AI has 1 billion monthly users, according to the company, although it’s not clear how regularly those users engage with it. Users can talk to the chatbot via Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or the standalone Meta AI app.

And the company is already raking in huge sums from its advertising business. Last quarter alone, it earned US$46.5 billion from advertising revenue, up more than 21 per cent from the same period in the prior year. Meta’s shares are up nearly 20 per cent since the start of this year, bringing its market cap to $1.8 trillion as of Oct. 1.

But some in Silicon Valley believe people will increasingly want to do their online shopping via AI chatbots, rather than by searching on Google or scrolling social media. Meta rival OpenAI on Monday launched the ability for users to buy select items directly through its own chatbot, ChatGPT, although it is not currently an ads-based business.

Meta users will still have the option to use its “ad preferences” tool to add or remove topics for targeted ads, and the company offers similar features for users to control content on their Facebook and Instagram feeds.

Meta also said it won’t deliver personalized ads based on conversations with the chatbot regarding religious views, sexual orientation, political views, health, racial or ethnic origin, philosophical beliefs or trade union membership, in keeping with its larger policy not to target users based on those categories. (To be clear, Meta still allows ads related to these topics; it just doesn’t target users based on their perceived interest in them.)

After the company launched its Meta AI app, reports emerged of users being embarrassed that they’d unwittingly publicly shared personal chats they’d apparently thought were private about relationship issues or finances. Meta later added a pop-up that alerted users before they publicly posted an AI conversation on a feed called Discover.

That feed was replaced last week with “Vibes,” an endless scrolling feed of user-created, AI-generated videos.

So, with Meta’s ad targeting change coming into effect later this year, if you watch too many AI-generated dog videos on Vibes, prepare to be targeted by dog-related ads on Instagram.