If free AI assistants wore shoes, this would be the other one dropping: Meta could soon use almost anything you say to its chatbot to try to sell you stuff more effectively on its platforms, the company announced yesterday.
For example, asking the purple and blue circle in your Instagram DMs to recommend nearby nature trails could lead to more ads for hiking boots, as well as creator content about mountains. They could appear in your Facebook feed, too, if your accounts are linked. Voice recordings by Ray-Ban Meta glasses will also factor into ad targeting.
There’s no opt-out option, other than ignoring the chatbot, but some things remain sacred. Meta said it won’t use conversations about your religion, political views, sexual orientation, health, or race and ethnicity to suggest ads. And chats from before Dec. 16, when the policy takes effect, will also be excluded.
Zoom out: AI players are starting to monetize their free chatbots. OpenAI introduced a feature this week to buy Etsy (and soon Shopify) products through ChatGPT, while Google and X recently announced plans to show ads in their AI search results.—ML