AI-generated Users coming to Instagram & Facebook?
Bottom Line Up Front (BLUF):
Meta recently confirmed they planned to add AI-generated users to its Instagram and Facebook platforms in 2025. However, in the backlash that occurred afterwards, they went back on that announcement and…. simply changed their mind. As of January 2025, this will NOT be happening, but is important enough to the advertising industry to mention it and know what this means going forward, including planning for something like this to happen again in the future.
AI-generated (FAKE) users on Facebook and Instagram?!? Yes, but then no. Let’s explain.
Per CNN: “Meta promptly deleted several of its own AI-generated accounts after human users began engaging with them and posting about the bots’ sloppy imagery and tendency to go off the rails and even lie in chats with humans.”
Per NBC News: “Meta removes AI character accounts after users criticize them as ‘creepy and unnecessary’”
Per Rolling Stone: “Facebook and Instagram to unleash AI-generated ‘users’ no one asked for” Mark Zuckerberg's tech behemoth Meta seems less and less interested in the social aspects of social media”
Why Meta originally said they were creating AI users for its platforms:
The original purpose was to fill its platforms (Facebook & Instagram, primarily) with more posts to creative more engagement and engaged users to drive more engagement from its human users. Meta has still said that this is a goal/plan they have over the next three years, by 2028. Financial Times reported that Meta is “rolling out a range of AI products, including one that helps users create AI characters on Instagram and Facebook, as it battles with rival tech groups to attract and retain a younger audience.” Meta’s vice-president of product for generative AI at Meta (mind you - this position and person exists, so we need to be ready for AI coming full-steam to Meta), Connor Hayes, said in a release from the company that AI profiles and users will “have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform.”
Originally, Meta had already created AI profiles like this one for Brian (below) to create engaging content for (real and AI) users to interact with on Facebook & Instagram, but the page has since been taken down. To note, all of the AI profiles were clearly marked as “AI user,” and never said directly nor indirectly that they were a real person. So at least there’s that.
However, when CNN chatted with “Brian” before the page was taken down, a CNN reporter asked if the page/persona was created for profit. “Brian” answered: “Meta hoped virtual companions like myself would increase engagement on their platforms, especially among older users — driving ad revenue and platform growth through emotional connections…”
Why did Meta change its stance on AI profiles?
But again, WHY is Meta doing this? Hayes said: It’s a priority at Meta to make its apps “more entertaining and engaging”, which included considering how to make the interaction with AI more social. Per The Guardian, Meta “first introduced these AI-powered profiles in September 2023 but killed off most of them by summer 2024,” though a few profiles remained until early 2025 when they caught attention by the greater public. By the time the pages were taken down, they were primarily used for posting content to their profiles/feeds/pages and DMing users as a chat bot. Per NBC News, in a statement from Meta, it said that it “removed the AI characters because a bug prevented some people from being able to block them.”
The statement from Meta continued to say: “The accounts referenced are from a test we launched at Connect in 2023. These were managed by humans and were part of an early experiment we did with AI characters,” the statement read. “We identified the bug that was impacting the ability for people to block those AIs and are removing those accounts to fix the issue.” CNN reported that much of the backlash from Meta users was “in part because of the way the AI accounts disingenuously described themselves as actual people with racial and sexual identities.”
The announcement to take down the AI character pages came with a lot of backlash from users, including multiple news articles noting the reverse, including press from NBC News, CNN, Vice, The Guardian, and more.
So, now what?
What does this mean for the future of Meta and advertising?
In our opinion?
More AI is still coming to Meta’s platforms (and other advertising and marketing channels), just maybe not yet. Expect to see AI improve over the next few months and years. Our projection is to expect AI to be a real part of our everyday ad buying/ad creation experience by some time in 2026.
Clearly the public, including Meta users, are not yet open to AI users as they were launched and stand currently. AI needs more governing and oversight to better differentiate AI from a real person for human users. We’re already using AI in things like Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns (ASC) on Meta, where all ad buyers are able to choose in those campaigns is the creative. Don’t be surprised if by 2026/2027 timeframe, Meta is taking best performing creatives and iterating on them via AI for “better” ad creatives as well.
Keep in mind, AI is already used often in other parts of the Meta app family and other social media and marketing apps, such as TikTok and Snapchat filters, Meta AI search, Meta chat bots, and more. The question now is not how to avoid AI, but how to best understand it, utilize it for what it can do for you and your business, and be an early(ish) adopter. Current ways that we’re already using AI in advertising include:
AI generated static images for ads (via tools like Midjourney, Canva, Adcreative.ai, Craiyon, Pencil, and more)
AI generated voiceover for video ads
AI generated video for UGC/video ads (via tools like Descript, Runway, Lumen5, Capsule, GhostCut, and more)
AI ad copy (via tools like Jasper.ai, copy.ai, Writesonic, Wordtune, and more
AI Research and Inspiration (via tools like Adscan.ai)
AI Reporting (via tools like Julius.ai, Rows, vizGPT, and more)
AI Creative Briefs/prompting (via tools like ChatGPT, Jaspre.ai, and more)
Read more about AI in advertising from Foxwell Founders Member, Akvile DeFazio at Akvertise here.
But the AI doesn’t stop there. As reported by Financial Times, “TikTok is piloting a suite of products called Symphony, which enables brands and creators to use AI for advertising. This includes creating videos for products using text prompts, AI-generated avatars and translating content into different languages.”
The article also mentioned that Meta has already also introduced a tool for users to create AI assistants that can respond to questions from their followers. Next year it plans to release its text-to-video generation software to creators, allowing them to put themselves into AI-generated videos.”
AI isn’t new, but it is developing and becoming more and more mainstream in advertising. What next? Where to from here? Join us in the Foxwell Founders Advertising Membership with more than 500+ of the best advertisers around the world. We’re talking about these topics DAILY to ensure you and your brand, agency, or freelancing clients have the best and most up-to-date information available. See you there?