Meta will mine your AI convos for ads — and there’s no opt-out

Meta will begin using every conversation people have with its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot to serve them targeted ads starting December 16, affecting one billion monthly users with no way to opt out of the new data collection.

The social media giant announced Wednesday that text and voice interactions with Meta AI will shape what posts, reels, groups, and advertisements users see across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Users will receive a notification about the change starting October 7.

“People’s interactions simply are going to be another piece of the input that will inform the personalization of feeds and ads,” said Christy Harris, Meta’s privacy policy manager, during a press briefing. She added that Meta is “still in the process of building the first offerings that will make use of this data.”

The scope reaches roughly one in eight people on Earth. Meta revealed its AI assistant now has one billion monthly active users across the company’s platforms.

Unlike data collection from likes and follows, this policy captures direct conversations that users might consider private. Someone discussing hiking plans with the chatbot could soon see hiking boot advertisements and trail recommendations in their feed.

Meta claims certain sensitive topics won’t trigger ads. Conversations about religious views, sexual orientation, political views, health conditions, racial origin, philosophical beliefs, or union membership supposedly remain off-limits for advertising purposes.

“We have existing policies around the information that people might consider sensitive, and those will continue to apply,” Harris said.

Users cannot disable this data collection if they choose to use Meta AI.

Europe gets different treatment. The policy won’t apply in the United Kingdom, European Union, or South Korea while Meta addresses regulatory requirements in those regions.

The timeline gives users minimal preparation. Notifications begin on October 7 through in-app messages and emails. The actual data collection starts on December 16.

While companies have long tracked clicks and posts, mining AI conversations for marketing insights hasn’t happened at this scale before. Meta posted $46.5 billion in advertising revenue last quarter alone. The company’s stock has risen nearly 20 percent this year.

Linked accounts across Meta’s platforms will also be affected. AI conversations on WhatsApp could influence Instagram recommendations if those accounts share the same Accounts Center.

Meta maintains that encrypted conversations won’t change under the new policy. The company also states that users can still adjust ad preferences through existing tools, although they cannot prevent their AI interactions from being analyzed.

The announcement comes as Meta pushes deeper into artificial intelligence, having recently launched smart glasses with built-in displays and replaced its “Discover” feed with an AI-generated video feed called “Vibes.”