Has Meta Figured Out How to Monetize AI - By Using It For Targeted Advertising? (yahoo.com) 44
Yahoo Finance reports that Mark Zuckerberg made bold predictions for investors on Meta's earnings call this week — about advertisers. "AI has already made us better at targeting and finding the audiences that will be interested in their products than many businesses are themselves," Zuck said, "and that keeps improving..."
"If we deliver on this vision, then over the coming years, I think that the increased productivity from AI will make advertising a meaningfully larger share of global GDP than it is today..." If investors are still searching for answers to nagging questions about how massive AI investments will pay off, Zuckerberg provided the clearest reply yet: It will strengthen our core business. In fact, it is our business... On what many believe to be the cusp of an economic downturn, Meta isn't pitching its AI developments as an add-on to its operations, but as something central to its core proposition of targeted advertising...
"While Meta's investments in GenAI have spooked certain investors who continue to question the return on these investments, we saw further signs of GenAI monetization in the firm's ad business," wrote Morningstar equity analyst Malik Ahmed Khan in a note on Thursday. In a powerful showing, coming after Alphabet's own impressive results, Meta noted that a new ads recommendation model it's testing for Reels has already boosted conversion rates by 5%. And nearly one-third of advertisers were using AI creative tools in the past quarter. For Zuckerberg, the enhancements AI offers to finding the right consumers and providing measurable results strengthen the case for boosting capacity and for a revamped model of advertising's scope.
And with the company set to invest upwards of $70 billion toward its AI opportunity this year, the bet is not all about ads, of course. Zuckerberg outlined four other areas of focus for its AI efforts: business messaging, Meta AI, AI devices, and more engaging experiences. Meta's efforts can also be viewed as an ambitious play to take on its rivals across tech's legacy and emerging platforms. As John Blackledge, senior analyst at TD Cowen, said in a note on Thursday, the AI opportunities Zuckerberg outlined are about "ultimately taking on Google search, iPhone and ChatGPT all at once."
In the pre-AI world, "Businesses used to have to generate their own ad creative and define what audiences they wanted to reach," Zuckerberg told Meta's investors this week.
And by Friday's closing, Meta's stock had jumped 12.6% over its value Wednesday morning, leading Yahoo Finance to conclude that Wall Street "appears to be buying into" Zuckerberg's vision.
"If we deliver on this vision, then over the coming years, I think that the increased productivity from AI will make advertising a meaningfully larger share of global GDP than it is today..." If investors are still searching for answers to nagging questions about how massive AI investments will pay off, Zuckerberg provided the clearest reply yet: It will strengthen our core business. In fact, it is our business... On what many believe to be the cusp of an economic downturn, Meta isn't pitching its AI developments as an add-on to its operations, but as something central to its core proposition of targeted advertising...
"While Meta's investments in GenAI have spooked certain investors who continue to question the return on these investments, we saw further signs of GenAI monetization in the firm's ad business," wrote Morningstar equity analyst Malik Ahmed Khan in a note on Thursday. In a powerful showing, coming after Alphabet's own impressive results, Meta noted that a new ads recommendation model it's testing for Reels has already boosted conversion rates by 5%. And nearly one-third of advertisers were using AI creative tools in the past quarter. For Zuckerberg, the enhancements AI offers to finding the right consumers and providing measurable results strengthen the case for boosting capacity and for a revamped model of advertising's scope.
And with the company set to invest upwards of $70 billion toward its AI opportunity this year, the bet is not all about ads, of course. Zuckerberg outlined four other areas of focus for its AI efforts: business messaging, Meta AI, AI devices, and more engaging experiences. Meta's efforts can also be viewed as an ambitious play to take on its rivals across tech's legacy and emerging platforms. As John Blackledge, senior analyst at TD Cowen, said in a note on Thursday, the AI opportunities Zuckerberg outlined are about "ultimately taking on Google search, iPhone and ChatGPT all at once."
In the pre-AI world, "Businesses used to have to generate their own ad creative and define what audiences they wanted to reach," Zuckerberg told Meta's investors this week.
And by Friday's closing, Meta's stock had jumped 12.6% over its value Wednesday morning, leading Yahoo Finance to conclude that Wall Street "appears to be buying into" Zuckerberg's vision.
AI Targeted Advertising ... (Score:3)
Has Meta Figured Out How to Monetize AI - By Using It For Targeted Advertising?
So, they finally figured that out? Took them long enough.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That's been done for years, just not by Facebook. It's a classic problem in machine learning, and they've either finally noticed ... or took a revenus hit!
Not making money is an excellent motivator (:-))
Don't be so hard on them. 'The Zuck' sometimes has a very, very long fuse.
Bullshit (Score:2)
In other words, (Score:2)
whatever promises come from the "tech industry", in the end they devolve into only one thing - peddling crap.
A worthy use for "AI", at least.
Re: (Score:2)
whatever promises come from the "tech industry", in the end they devolve into only one thing - peddling crap.
A worthy use for "AI", at least.
Worthy? That’s premature talk. If you think human marketeers can be annoying insufferable narcissistic cunts, just imagine how “good” AI will be at that job. 24 hours a day.
The worst part is humans won’t even be able to tell what is a scam anymore. AI will get really good at bullshitting for profit, and humans are dumb enough to keep Nigerian “Princes” wealthy.
Re: (Score:2)
I thought that's the selling point of a marketeer - being annoying :)
AI will get really good at bullshitting for profit, and humans are dumb enough to keep Nigerian “Princes” wealthy.
Oh, quite. I mean, it worked and still partly works in politics...
Re: (Score:2)
whatever promises come from the "tech industry", in the end they devolve into only one thing - peddling crap.
A worthy use for "AI", at least.
I agree. Fits in well with "better crap", which at least some "AI" can do as well. Remember when you could have MS Word make a "summary" of your document that was above 100% of the original length? That finally has become a real thing!
Re: (Score:2)
Remember when you could have MS Word make a "summary" of your document that was above 100% of the original length?
No, but I LOL-ed. Must have happened after I switched away from it.
Re: (Score:2)
It was a long time ago. We did joke that you could give it a sentence and then it would write your document for you. It may even only have been something in a preview version and I do not remember what it actually did. I started using MS Word much later and only whenever it could not be avoided.
you have a finite amount of $ to spend (Score:5, Interesting)
People can't spend more than they make, including their credit lines, there is a finite amount of consumer $$ to spend. If you spend more on your car, you have less for your vacation.
This doesn't increase the total dollars spent, it just gets you to spend at MY fine establishment. Now you're out of dollars to spend anywhere else.
Re: (Score:2)
So who gets your money doesn't depend on which product is better, it depends on who gets up in your face and convinces you to spend your bucks at their fine establishment first. People can't spend more than they make, including their credit lines, there is a finite amount of consumer $$ to spend. If you spend more on your car, you have less for your vacation. This doesn't increase the total dollars spent, it just gets you to spend at MY fine establishment. Now you're out of dollars to spend anywhere else.
Greed won’t mind paying consumers more and more. Because they’ll be brainwashed to do one thing with all that money. Spend it.
Look what a global pandemic did FOR Capitalism.
Re: (Score:1)
Counterpoint: People could miss out on good opportunities without targeted ads. I'm interested in local theater and I've found out about several productions through Facebook ads. Also I go running, and there are a couple of local events that I only found out about because of Facebook. If advertising is partly about matching up possible consumers and possible suppliers then (and it pains me to say this) Facebook's targeting could be a good thing.
Re: (Score:2)
Counterpoint: People could miss out on good opportunities without targeted ads. I'm interested in local theater and I've found out about several productions through Facebook ads. Also I go running, and there are a couple of local events that I only found out about because of Facebook. If advertising is partly about matching up possible consumers and possible suppliers then (and it pains me to say this) Facebook's targeting could be a good thing.
The theater thing could have been taken care of with an old fashioned email list. If the theather doesn't have one, but are relying on facebook, this is a Bad Sign for the long-term future of the theater. A weekly mailout can be handled out by one volunteer for free. When that one volunteer is unwell, or simply moves on, the handover is easy. Instead, someone is paying Facebook to do this. Maybe a volunteer is paying that bill as a gift/donation, but what's the succession plan?
I do local run runs too. When
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
and I hope you aren't schizophrenic because that can be a serious problem I wouldn't wish upon anybody.
So the consumer market will fluctuate in size, no doubt.
My point is more that as a consumer, you have a finite amount of dollars.
What on earth is there to 'figure out' ?!?? (Score:2)
Using AI/ML as a hyper-fast and specialized targeted ads expert and having it train itself on the heuristic click-through and desired behavior feedback is just about as much of a no-brainer you can get. Especially if you have north of a billion active users. I'd be surprised if the big player all didn't already have such bots in place for quite some time now.
Re: What on earth is there to 'figure out' ?!?? (Score:2)
Google has done this for like 15 years. What Zuckerberg wants to do is have the AI also make all the creative assets, which will lie and show any picture that results in clicks.
They also want to turn targeting into more of a black box, something that Google has been pushing for the last several years, too. Basically, they want to be a tax for doing business on the internet and they do not want to provide the nitty-gritty data that shows when you are spending money on ads in Thailand when you specified a 50
Re: (Score:2)
They also want to turn targeting into more of a black box, something that Google has been pushing for the last several years, too. Basically, they want to be a tax for doing business on the internet and they do not want to provide the nitty-gritty data that shows when you are spending money on ads in Thailand when you specified a 50 mile radius.
I've been saying this for years. the big advertising outfits try *really hard* to hide the details of who has seen your ads, while at the same time claiming you haven't paid them to show the ad to anyone out of your target market, let alone your target country. And they never ever admit that you have paid them to show an ad to a bot or a spider.
"Tax for doing business on the internet" is a nice phrase. Every new business plan these days seems to be to insert the business into some existing system that alrea
Re: (Score:2)
Bullshit. The ad-slingers do not care from where they take their money. Elections have nothing to do with it. However, it is telling that you would jump to this conclusion. It must be what you would do in their situation.
AI salesman (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Porn and ads, (Score:2)
that's what drives most tech. Wanna get rich? Porn and ads, don't even need plastics.
This means ... (Score:2)
finding the audiences that will be interested in their products
This could turn out to be a good thing.
Re: (Score:2)
I think that it might help with the problem of "searched for X product, researched it, and purchased it last week, now get inundated with ads for said product, even though it's a durable good like a vacuum that one isn't going to need again any time soon."
With enough intelligence, they might figure out that maybe they should show me other stuff for 3 years or so. That said, my vacuum has lasted over 10 years, and I'm a bit different in that I insist on a bagged vacuum. But that's something that AI might b
"advertising a ... larger share of global GDP" (Score:3)
But if AI is so efficient, shouldn't the cost of advertising go down?
Re: (Score:2)
You just need to turn off your BS detector and the logical part of your brain. Then it all makes sense.
Strongly doubt it (Score:3)
I don't doubt for a second that they are using AI-related buzzwords to make it appear that they are using AI for strongly targeted advertising, but just consider for a second how Facebook actually does advertising targeting and you will know that they are almost certainly lying about this, because they are already lying about their existing advertising system being targeted.
All content on Facebook is automatically tagged, and you cannot see the tags. When you interact with the content in any way (comment with any content, reshare to anyone or any group, or any reacc) these tags are copied to your profile as "interests". An active user profile typically has thousands of them. Advertising is targeted at people with "specific" "interests".
How much do you want to bet that your interests are passed to the AI as tokens, so it's working from bullshit information to start with?
Sure would be a shame (Score:2)
If a small EMP device went off next to a few of your data centers.
Ads have joined the club (Score:2)
Some have speculated that war and porn drive a lot of innovation. Maybe we can add ads to that list.
Re: (Score:2)
Naa, nobody likes ads. Hence only bean-counters with no life and no friends work in that area...
My proposal for targeted ads (Score:3)
If I'm in the market for a product or service, I request pitches from all suppliers
Suppliers send me their pitches, precisely targeted to my request without unrelated spam
When I decide to buy or not buy, the pitches stop, really stop
This would be useful
Today's so-called "targeted" ads suck mightily
I get ads for stuff I already bought
I get ads for stuff I looked at once and had no interest in
I get random ads that don't fit me at all
I get the same ad, over and over
Re: My proposal for targeted ads (Score:2)
Yep. Modern advertising is not about product exposure at all. It's about creating peer pressure and trying to convince you that you need things which you actually don't.
Haha! LLM-based at filtering to the rescue! (Score:2)
Or maybe not. That would have been one application I could have gotten behind. Probably too expensive though.
AI Personal Shopper (Score:2)
I know this isn't what they are talking about but I sure wish I could just type what I want into a search and have it tell me what to buy for a particular need. I would pay double to not have to spend hours researching.
I have a basement bathroom that needs a new sink, except it's an oddly shaped room and it needs to be a short depth while still being freestanding on the floor and have the right hole spacing for my old faucet hardware. And I don't want a molded top without room to set things on it.
This pur
Redefining conversion rate (Score:3)
Today FB has redefined this to mean any of:
- Clicking on an ad
- Watching a video to a certain point
- Liking or sharing content
- Adding an item to a cart
- Filling out a lead form
- And yes, sometimes making a purchase
In the era of broadcast television, humans were shown 4 ads every 15 minutes and companies could directly measure if sales increases correlated with an ad run. Today a person is shown multiple ads every 15 seconds or so and it is absolutely impossible to correlate anything a person does financially with any particular ad they saw. The entire premise of "targeted advertising" is destroyed by the sheer volume of "targeted" ads we all see. It is all garbage hype with no measurable results in reality.
Meta: your plastic friend .. (Score:2)
Nope (Score:2)
It was always advertising and marketing (Score:2)
Same with Big Data and Machine Learning... Yeah, okay, there was a little bit of real science in there that has made use of that, and the same with AI, but what got all this tech out in the real world and into business was the promise of turning all that data they've collected over the decades into "actionable business insights". That, and the promise of increased operating efficiences (read: firing a bunch of people that did real work and replacing them with a person paid less that still does all the same