Meta's business AI hits 10 million weekly conversations
Meta reported significant growth in its business artificial intelligence sector during its first-quarter earnings conference call. As of late March, the company's business AI tools facilitated approximately 10 million conversations weekly, a sharp increase from the 1 million conversations recorded at the start of the year. This surge coincides with an expanded beta program for Meta's business AI assistant, now available across the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. Currently, these business AI tools are offered free of charge to small businesses on Meta's messaging platforms as the company pursues market scale. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg indicated that this strategy is expected to evolve, with plans to establish a long-term monetization model as the technology matures. The underlying intelligence for these products is driven by Muse Spark, the first large language model released under Meta Superintelligence Labs, a division established last year to focus on advanced AI research. Beyond general business interactions, Meta highlighted strong performance in its creative AI solutions. CFO Susan Li stated that over 8 million advertisers are utilizing at least one of the company's generative AI ad creative tools. Adoption is particularly strong among small and medium-sized businesses, with early tests showing that advertisers using video generation features achieved conversion rates more than 3 percent higher than those who did not. Additionally, the company is launching an open beta for Meta Ads AI Connectors this week, enabling advertisers to link their ad accounts directly to AI agents for automation. Financial results for the quarter reflect robust demand for Meta's core services. The company's applications generated $885 million in revenue, largely driven by paid messaging on WhatsApp and subscriptions to its various apps. Earlier this month, Meta began testing WhatsApp Plus, a subscription service offering users access to custom icons, themes, and notification sounds. Overall, Meta posted a profit of $26.8 billion for the first quarter, a substantial rise from $16.6 billion in the same period last year. Total revenue reached $56.3 billion, representing a 33 percent increase year over year. These figures underscore Meta's continued ability to leverage AI integration across its advertising and messaging ecosystems to drive both engagement and financial performance.
