Has Meta Figured Out How to Monetize AI - By Using It For Targeted Advertising? (yahoo.com)
- Reference: 0177322477
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/05/05/0558205/has-meta-figured-out-how-to-monetize-ai---by-using-it-for-targeted-advertising
- Source link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-ai-revolution-is-an-advertising-revolution-morning-brief-100001467.html
"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 [2]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...
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> "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 [3]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.
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> 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 " [4]appears to be buying into" Zuckerberg's vision .
[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/the-ai-revolution-is-an-advertising-revolution-morning-brief-100001467.html
[2] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nvidia-stock-rises-to-lead-chip-rally-after-meta-microsoft-back-ai-investment-plans-124324390.html
[3] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-stock-rises-after-it-beats-on-earnings-raises-dividend-and-authorizes-70-billion-in-buybacks-192027323.html
[4] https://finance.yahoo.com/video/strong-q1-meta-microsoft-eases-213447797.html
Bullshit (Score:2)
As a person who is reluctant to be there (part of my work), my experience is must be half of the so-called "Sponsored" ads take you right to malware delivery. Clickbait that makes Slashdot headlines look sedate.
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.
you have a finite amount of $ to spend (Score:5, Interesting)
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 $$ to spend. If you spend more on your car, you have less for your vacation.
This doesn't increase the total dollars spent, it just gets you to spend at MY fine establishment. Now you're out of dollars to spend anywhere else.
Re: (Score:2)
> So who gets your money doesn't depend on which product is better, it depends on who gets up in your face and convinces you to spend your bucks at their fine establishment first. People can't spend more than they make, including their credit lines, there is a finite amount of consumer $$ 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.
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: (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)
People have been targeting adds for decades. AI might do a better job, but presenting me a better ad isnt going to make me buy anything I dont need. I know it will for many but PT Barnum said it with "There's a sucker born every minute"
Re: (Score:2)
Time to build an AI ad filtering plugin for the web browser! Something that jailbreaks some rules that force the ads to be labelled clearly, then cuts them out perhaps.
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
... I won't be seeing any ads until I actually search for a particular product. Because until then, I'm_just_not_interested.
This could turn out to be a good thing.
"advertising a ... larger share of global GDP" (Score:2)
But if AI is so efficient, shouldn't the cost of advertising go down?
Strongly doubt it (Score:2)
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 wi
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:2)
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
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
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)
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 (:-))
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.