Meta to use your AI chats to give you targeted ads. Will it come to Europe and can you opt out?

Instagram’s chief has said that the social networking company is not actively “listening” to its users to target them with adverts. However, parent company Meta will no longer even need a microphone to target you with ads. It will use its artificial intelligence (AI) instead. 

Adam Mosseri said on his Instagram account on Wednesday that parent company Meta, is not secretly turning on microphones. “I swear, we do not listen to your microphone,” he said.

However, Meta may not need to use microphones, as the company announced on Wednesday that it will soon show ads and other content to users based on interactions with its digital assistant and other products that use artificial intelligence (AI).

 Here is everything you need to know about the changes. 

Which Meta products will be affected?

Meta has generative AI in its digital assistant, which can be used in its apps Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. Its AI is also in a stand-alone app and website. 

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in May that the AI digital assistant has more than one billion active monthly users on its apps. He also said that “there will be opportunities to either insert paid recommendations” or offer “a subscription service so that people can pay to use more compute”.

Users of the Ray-Ban Meta glasses will also be impacted if they use Meta’s AI digital assistant. 

How does it work?

Both audio and text interactions with Meta AI would be counted. 

“While this is a natural progression of our personalisation efforts and will help give us even better recommendations for people, we want to be super transparent about it and provide a heads up before we actually begin using this data in a new way, even if people already thought that we were doing this,” Meta privacy and data policy manager Christy Harris said at a press briefing. 

She said that one example could be that users use Meta AI to plan family holidays, the digital assistant’s responses could influence the kinds of video adverts that appear on Facebook, for instance.

“So the Reels that I see on my Facebook feed or other types of content that is recommended to me could include family friendly travel destinations,” Harris said. “It could include ads for hotels or other signals that would be informed by the conversation that I have had with Meta AI”.

Can you opt out?

No, users cannot opt out. The only way to not be included is if users don’t use Meta AI.

When will it come to Europe?

Users in the United States will receive notifications of the change starting on 7 October and it will take effect on 16 December.

Meta plans to debut the recommendation update to users in the United Kingdom and the European Union, “following our usual regulatory updates,” Harris said during a media briefing.

Meta would have to comply with Europe’s data protection rules, known as GDPR it is so far unclear how it would do so and if the European Union would take aim at Meta.

Meta AI came to Europe eight months after it was launched, due to regulation, which prioritises people’s data privacy, making it harder to train AI models, and levels the playing field between tech giants and smaller companies.