Meta is pushing forward with generative AI projects aimed at bolstering its still-recovering advertising business.
The social media company, formerly known as Facebook, this week secured a patent covering advertising that is created and altered through AI depending on the interests of a given user, according to a filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Meta is just now starting to recover from a multi-billion dollar hit to its ads business, which accounts for nearly all of the company's revenue, due to Apple's privacy changes in 2021. The recovery so far is due in part to AI-led ad targeting, which is improving ad performance and pleasing advertisers. Wall Street expects a return to double-digit percentage growth in revenue, a level of growth Meta has not seen for two years.
What's described in Meta's new patent is the alteration and creation of new or "enhanced" ad content through the use of generative AI. GenAI is a renewed area of interest and investment from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has spoken more about it since the genAI craze set off by OpenAI's release last fall of ChatGPT.
The patent says it covers "the generation and delivery" of new content and "systems and methods for generation and delivery of enhanced content utilizing remote rendering and data streaming."
"This patent also relates generally to digital content customization via audience detection, and more specifically, to systems and methods for utilizing artificial intelligence based audience detection techniques and mechanisms to deliver customized digital content over communications devices," the patent adds.
It goes on to include methods for AI to measure, analyze and predict how well such ads or "content" performs and adjust content based on the results. The patent, invented by more than a dozen current and former Meta employees, was initially filed at the end of 2021.
Enabling AI to do the work of not only targeting and reviewing the success of advertising for clients, but also creating and optimizing ad content for a small group of users, or even individuals, could entice advertisers and prove a boost to Meta's bottom line.
"It would be great to take some creative assets and figure out the right combination or really optimize assets for cohorts of people," a leader of an ad management company who has overseen tens of millions of dollars in ads with Meta said. Although he remains skeptical that genAI will meaningfully "move the needle" of overall revenue growth for the company.
Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In February, Zuckerberg said he was creating "a new top-level product group" at the company to "turbocharge" work in genAI. A few weeks later, Andrew Bosworth, Meta's CTO and head of its metaverse division Reality Labs, said in an April interview with Nikkei that he and Zuckerberg are now spending "most" of their time at work on genAI projects. He admitted Meta was working toward an ad offering that used genAI, projecting it would be released toward the end of this year.
The technology will move digital advertising with Meta away from the current process of an advertiser or brand creating a single set of ad creative that's shown to a targeted audience of users on a platform like Facebook or Instagram. Instead, an advertiser will have the option to "ask the AI, 'Make images for my company that work for different audiences,'" Bosworth said.
"It can save a lot of time and money," the CTO noted.
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