Meta Platforms Inc. Chief Product Officer Chris Cox said that AI chatbots will become an increasingly attractive tool for advertisers, rather than just a way to lure users, in a sign the company is pivoting the technology toward business customers.
(Bloomberg) — Meta Platforms Inc. Chief Product Officer Chris Cox said that AI chatbots will become an increasingly attractive tool for advertisers, rather than just a way to lure users, in a sign the company is pivoting the technology toward business customers.
“There’s a huge demand from business for better tools,” Cox said Tuesday at the WSJ Tech Live conference in Laguna Beach, California. “One of the most profoundly impactful applications for the near term for AI is helping businesses be more effective.”
Weeks after releasing a handful of free AI chatbots to users on Instagram and WhatsApp, Meta is seeking ways to make money from artificial intelligence. It’s a signature move for the company: Release a new feature, then quickly find a way to monetize it via advertisers. That was the case with short-form video and Stories on Instagram. Meta also followed that playbook when the company opened up its chat apps for commerce.
The artificial intelligence features introduced last month included customized sticker creation, image editing and a slew of celebrity chatbot characters that are powered by generative AI. It was the biggest release of consumer-facing artificial intelligence features from the company, which has also rolled out AI technology for developers.
Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and other top brass have been on a messaging tour this year to frame the company as a leader in the AI arms race. But this isn’t the social media leader’s first pivot. Meta changed its name from Facebook in October 2021 in favor of a shortened reference to the metaverse, a virtual reality platform that the CEO has called the next generation of the internet.
After OpenAI’s ChatGPT swiftly captured the public’s imagination last year, Zuckerberg has spent more time talking about AI than the metaverse on earnings calls and at its annual developer conference.
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