• by Colin Kirkland , May 12, 2023

Meta has announced new generative AI tools to its Advantage ad platform, inviting advertisers who are early testers to create alternative copies, background generation through text prompts and image cropping for ads on Facebook and Instagram, and more.

Meta says the AI Sandbox moves beyond image touch-ups -- for example, switching backgrounds on ads that contain pictures of products -- and seeks more sophisticated solutions for “the creative process,” says Nicola Mendelsohn, Meta's head of global business group.

With the AI Sandbox, brands can now generate various versions of the same copy for different audiences while conveying a similar message in an ad. They can also create background images from text inputs, able to try various backgrounds more easily while diversifying their creative assets, per Meta.

Advertisers can also use the new image cropping feature to create visuals in different aspect ratios across various media such as social posts and short-form video such as Stories and Reels.

In the announcement, Meta highlighted Jones Road Beauty, which is using AI Sandbox tools to produce text in ads and images for backgrounds, a similar process to the prompt-generated results provided by popular generative AI platforms like ChatGPT and DALL-E.

“Currently, we’re working with a small group of advertisers in order to quickly gather feedback that we can use to make these products even better,” Meta wrote in a recent blog post. “In July, we will begin gradually expanding access to more advertisers with plans to add some of these features into our products later this year.”

The new tools build upon Meta’s ad portfolio, Meta Advantage, which uses AI and machine learning to help optimize campaign results, personalize ads via enhanced targeting to “help advertisers save time and money.”

Since launching Meta Advantage last year, the company says it has seen three times as many advertisers using Advantage+ shopping campaigns weekly compared to 6 months ago. 

During the next year, advertisers will begin seeing new Advantage+ ad features that allow them to switch manual campaigns to Advantage+ shopping in one click; import branded videos or customer demonstration videos as catalog ads; receive an automatic performance comparisons based on Advantage+ shopping campaigns, and further AI updates for targeting audiences within specific parameters.

“We’re now using larger, more complex models in our ads system to further improve performance and measurement when we don’t have access to the same granular level of data,” Meta wrote, adding that these new AI tools and features should achieve better results for businesses.