Meta unveils AI-powered Messenger chatbot, Threads API at Cannes Lions

Dive Brief:

Meta unveiled new tools, including an artificial intelligence-powered chat feature on Messenger, new business messaging solutions and an API for its Threads platform, at this year’s Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, per a company announcement.
Among the new features is a chatbot solution for Messenger that leverages Meta’s Llama 3 AI interface to respond to consumer messages in “engaging and natural ways.” Meta also revealed new tools to help select advertisers send paid marketing messages on Messenger.
For the company’s Threads platform, Meta is launching an API that will enable businesses and creators to share new content at scale while leveraging their preferred third-party applications.

Dive Insight:

Generative AI holds significant promise as a customer-service tool as many consumer inquiries, particularly in online chats, are similar and could potentially be solved simply. The biggest barrier to use is that the responses can feel “canned” or pre-designed. Meta’s use of generative AI to offer a more natural language response could make the process smoother for customers and more efficient for advertisers.

According to Meta, an advertiser’s return on ad spend (ROAS) on its platforms is $3.71 in revenue for every dollar spent on advertising. When adding in Meta’s AI-powered Advantage products, the ROAS increases — campaigns set up using Advantage+ Shopping drove an average of $4.52 in revenue for every dollar spent on advertising, per the company.

Using the new Messenger solution, businesses can share information about themselves and their product catalog through the Meta Business Suite. Chats can then be initiated by consumers through a “click to message” ad on the platform, organically, or with the “Send Message” button on a business's Facebook page, and AI will be used to generate a response. Meta stressed that customers will always have the option to request a human agent and that businesses can jump into the conversation at any time.

In addition, the company is rolling out new features that will enable businesses to create, organize and send paid marketing messages through Messenger through the Meta’s Ads Manager dashboard. The capabilities, which will be introduced soon to select advertisers, follows the company’s announcement that businesses using Ads Manager to send marketing messages on WhatsApp will have the ability to provide Meta with their subscriber list, and the company’s AI systems will then recommend the right subset of recipients based on their desired outcomes.

Finally, Meta’s Threads app, which now has more than 150 million monthly active users, will get a new API that will help businesses and creators share content with their communities and leverage their preferred third-party applications. The API will offer the ability for users to authenticate, publish posts and gather their own content. They will also be able to retrieve and engage with replies to their posts, set reply controls and hide or unhide specific replies. The offering will also allow users to analyze media and account-level insights, including views, likes and replies.