Meta is working toward a near future when many of the ads you see on Facebook or Instagram are created from scratch by AI, and thus more easily targeted specifically to you. Its goal is fully automated AI-powered ad generation by the end of 2026,

Meta platforms such as Instagram have marketed AI tools that let users create sexually explicit images of real people.

Meta Platforms said it’s introducing paid advertising to WhatsApp, in a move that could expand its revenue streams.

Meta Platforms Inc., the owner of Facebook and Instagram, is pushing deeper into AI-generated advertisements in a bid to make it cheaper and simpler for marketers to craft their messages.

WhatsApp introduces ads in the Status tab, shifting from its original ad-free promise while maintaining encrypted messaging and calls.

Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ: META) could potentially generate over $10 billion in annual ad revenue from its WhatsApp messaging service by 2028, according to an analyst.

End-to-end encryption is still guaranteed, and Meta also said that if users only use the app to call or message their contacts, there will be “no change to [the] experience at all,” though for many, this promise simply isn’t enough.

After the tech giant announced it would begin to include ads in WhatsApp’s Updates tab, which is used by roughly 1.5 million people per day, Signal president Meredith Whittaker took to X to lure users to her messaging tool: “Use Signal,” she wrote. “We promise, no AI clutter, no surveillance ads—whatever the rest of the industry does.”