Meta has officially introduced its inaugural generative AI features tailored for advertisers. This significant development enables advertisers to harness the power of AI to craft backgrounds, resize images, and produce multiple versions of ad text, all originating from their original content. This initiative comes on the heels of Meta’s Meta Connect event, where they unveiled groundbreaking products, including the Quest 3 mixed-reality headset, generative AI tools, stickers, editing utilities, and AI-driven smart glasses.
While these AI tools may not rival the allure of celebrity AIs that allow interactions with virtual versions of famous personalities like MrBeast or Paris Hilton, they demonstrate Meta’s vision of how generative AI can aid the brands and enterprises responsible for the lion’s share of Meta’s revenue.
The first of the trio of new features enables advertisers to personalize their creative assets by generating a range of distinct backgrounds to transform the appearance of their product images. This function closely mirrors the technology underpinning Meta’s consumer-oriented Backdrop tool, which empowers users to modify the backdrop or setting of their images using predefined prompts. In the advertising toolkit, these backgrounds are automatically generated to align with the advertiser’s original product images, typically featuring “simple backgrounds with colors and patterns,” as explained by Meta. This feature is accessible to advertisers leveraging Meta’s Advantage+ catalog for crafting their sales advertisements.
Another noteworthy feature is image expansion, offering advertisers the ability to adapt their assets to diverse aspect ratios required for various platforms, such as Feed or Reels. Also accessible to Advantage+ creatives in Meta’s Mads Manager, this AI feature streamlines the process, enabling advertisers to reduce the time spent repurposing creative materials, including images and videos, for different surfaces.
The text variations feature within Meta Ads Manager represents another groundbreaking capability. Here, AI can generate up to six distinct text variations based on the advertiser’s original copy. These variations can emphasize specific keywords and input phrases that the advertiser wishes to underscore. Advertisers have the flexibility to modify the generated output or select the most suitable option(s) in line with their objectives. Throughout the campaign, Meta can also present different combinations of text to different audience segments to determine which ones yield superior responses. While Meta refrains from disclosing performance metrics for each specific text variation, it’s worth noting that reporting is presently based on a single ad. Nevertheless, the more options an advertiser selects to run, the greater the opportunities to enhance their ad performance, according to Meta.
Meta reports that it has already conducted tests of these AI features with a diverse group of advertisers earlier this year. Initial results indicate that generative AI can save advertisers five or more hours weekly, equivalent to a month per year. However, Meta acknowledges that further refinements are needed to better tailor the generative AI output to align with each advertiser’s unique style.
Moreover, Meta teases additional AI features in development, including new methods for generating ad copy that accentuate selling points and generative backgrounds tailored to specific themes. As previously announced at Meta Connect, businesses will also have the opportunity to leverage AI for messaging on WhatsApp and Messenger, facilitating customer interactions in the realms of e-commerce, engagement, and support.
