Meta unveils voice agent and other AI-led features for advertisers
Meta has rolled out a series of new features for advertisers during its annual press event at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
The company continues to invest in Business AI, with the aim that every business advertising on Meta will have an AI agent on one of its apps, according to head of global business group Nicola Mendelsohn.
As part of this strategy, it is introducing coaching and customisation capabilities for brands to refine their agent.
At the same time, more ad formats are being tested on Business AI, including generative -AI prompts.
Notably, Meta is also testing a voice feature that allows users to interact with the AI agent through speech, with the demonstration showing a user asking a clothing brand’s AI agent to recommend a gift for her sister and discussing options.
It will be possible for users to switch between both voice and text when interacting with the AI agent.
“It’s more natural, hands free,” Mendelsohn suggested.
Advantage+ features
In a second presentation, Helen Ma, Meta’s vice-president, product management, discussed new features on Advantage+, all made possible by AI.
Translation capabilities will allow advertisers to automatically convert their messaging into the top 10 most-spoken languages, with the number of languages available doubling by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, using material such as past campaigns, Meta will be able to create “text personas” and automatically tailor messaging specific to these groups, such as “busy professionals”.
Several features on Advantage+ seek to make the user experience more visually attractive.
A virtual try-on tool will be introduced, enabling shoppers to visualise how, for instance, an item of clothing would look off the peg, with a variety of skin tones and body types to choose from.
Advertisers will be able to turn call-to-action buttons into “stickers” to make “the experience more visually fun and engaging and interactive”, according to Ma. Early testing suggested the stickers improved conversion rates.
Video generation, which already exists, will become more sophisticated, including the ability to add music and turn multiple images into video, making it easier for marketers to diversify their video creative.
There will also be video highlights: AI will extract key information from a video along with thumbnails of key scenes, giving viewers the option to more easily digest content.
Ads coming to WhatsApp status updates
Earlier on Monday, Meta separately announced a series of updates to WhatsApp, with the company continuing to highlight the app’s end-to-end encryption and how privacy remains its top priority.
During Monday afternoon’s press briefing, these were discussed in more detail by Nikila Srinivasan, also vice-president, product management.
These include business subscriptions so that companies can share updates with loyal customers; promoted channel ads that push a brand’s channel to the top of the directory; and advertising in status updates.