Advertisers have had their issues with Meta’s AI features for a long time. What appears to be more recent developments are Meta’s AI making enhancements without being asked, and the liability for any inaccuracies landing on the advertiser.
“As we saw with Bookshop, these automatic genAI revisions can be antithetical to brands’ strategies and their values, and [can] publish without a brand even knowing it,” said Emarketer’s senior analyst Asa Hiken. “It’s the brand that stands to lose here; consumers are unaware of Meta’s ad policies and are thus likely to assume that the brand willingly used AI.”
Digital agency Exverus told me Meta’s AI is tacking on sitelinks, translating copy, and spinning up AI images and carousels out of a brand’s own photos, sometimes on ads where advertisers did not switch the feature on.
Starting Oct. 30, all that is legally the advertiser’s problem. Under Meta’s updated Commercial Terms, the contract that governs every business using its products, advertisers who run ads on Meta will be “solely responsible” for whatever its AI features create or change, including features Meta switches on. This language sits in a new section, ‘AI Features,’ that does not exist in the current version.
Previously, according to the terms, liability stood with advertisers as well but only if they chose to use Meta’s AI tools.
