The Blubber

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, plans to enable advertisers to fully create and target campaigns using artificial intelligence tools by the end of next year—a move that has sent shock waves through the traditional marketing industry.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, which also owns WhatsApp, is aiming to tap directly into brand marketing budgets, posing a potential threat to advertising and media agencies that traditionally manage campaign creation, planning, and spending.

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, the AI tools under development will allow brands on Meta’s advertising platform to generate entire ads based on a product image and a specified marketing budget.

While Meta’s platform already offers basic AI features that let advertisers adjust existing ads for Facebook and Instagram, the new tools could bypass the need for traditional agencies altogether. The system would allow small-budget advertisers—who typically can’t afford full-service marketing firms—to produce high-quality, targeted campaigns autonomously.

These advanced AI tools would be capable of creating full ads, including images, video, and copy, and delivering them to targeted audiences based on factors like geography. For instance, a travel company could use the tools to promote location-specific deals tailored to a user’s likely destinations.

News of Meta’s AI expansion quickly rattled the marketing industry. Shares of global advertising giants fell sharply on Monday: WPP dropped 3% in early trading, while French firms Publicis Groupe and Havas declined by 3.9% and 3%, respectively.

Zuckerberg, who has made AI-driven advertising a central focus, has described the effort as “a redefinition of the category of advertising.”

In April, Meta updated its capital expenditure outlook, announcing plans to spend between $64 billion and $72 billion over the next year—much of it allocated to expanding AI infrastructure.