Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg: ‘More Than 50% Of The Content People See On Instagram Is Now AI Recommended’

Meta Platforms, Inc. META CEO Mark Zuckerberg has revealed that over 50% of the content on Instagram and 30% of posts on Facebook are now recommended by artificial intelligence.

What Happened: Zuckerberg made this revelation during Meta’s first-quarter financial results announcement on Wednesday.

“Right now, about 30% of the posts on Facebook feed are delivered by our AI recommendation system. That’s up 2x over the last couple of years,” he said in his opening statement, adding, “And for the first time ever, more than 50% of the content people see on Instagram is now AI recommended.”

The Meta CEO also revealed that AI has also played a pivotal role in enhancing the value for advertisers, with the revenue through Meta’s AI-powered tools, Advantage+ Shopping, and Advantage+ App Campaigns, more than doubling since last year.

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Meta disclosed first-quarter revenue of $36.45 billion, marking a 27% increase compared to the last year. This revenue exceeded the Street consensus estimate of $36.16 billion, according to data from Benzinga Pro. The tech giant’s earnings per share for the first quarter were $4.71, surpassing the Street estimate of $4.33.

Why It Matters: Last year in June, Meta announced new controls to allow users to manage what they see on Facebook and Instagram. This was part of Meta’s broader initiative to increase transparency and user empowerment regarding AI recommendations.

At the time, it was reported that Facebook users can customize recommendations by navigating to the ‘Feed Preferences’ section while Instagrammers could go to ‘Suggested Content Control Center’ within the app’s settings to adjust their recommendations.

Moreover, Instagram users have the ability to indicate their interest in specific recommended reels, prompting the service to display more content of similar types. This feature complements the existing “Not Interested” option introduced in 2021.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, Meta expanded its policy on AI-generated content, introducing labels for AI-generated content across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. This move aimed to provide users with more context about the content they see.

Photo courtesy: Anthony Quintano on Flickr

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.