Meta's business AI now handles about 10 million conversations per week, up tenfold since January, as of late March. The company disclosed the figure on its first-quarter call and said the wider beta across the U.S., EMEA, APAC and LATAM, including WhatsApp and other messaging surfaces, drove the surge. Meta isn't charging most small businesses yet, though CEO Mark Zuckerberg said it expects to pursue monetization as the tools mature.

Meta disclosed the new usage figure during its quarterly call with investors and analysts. The company said the business AI tools were facilitating roughly 10 million weekly conversations as of late March. That compares with about 1 million weekly conversations early this year, Meta added.

Meta linked the jump to an expansion of its beta program. The company said it opened the beta to more businesses across four global regions. The wider test has increased the number of small companies trying Meta's AI features on WhatsApp and other messaging surfaces.

How Meta is rolling out business AI

Meta has been building AI features into its messaging and business product suite. The company said it plans to power these tools with Muse Spark, a new large language model released by Meta Superintelligence Labs. That lab was set up last year and Muse Spark is the first model to come from it, Meta said on the call.

Meta also described integrations meant for advertisers. The company is starting an open beta of Meta Ads AI Connectors. The feature will let advertisers link their Meta ad accounts to an AI agent, according to the company.

Meta said more than 8 million advertisers used at least one of its generative ad creative tools during the quarter.

CFO Susan Li said usage of the ad creative tools is growing, and that some tests show performance gains. "Advertisers using our video generation feature saw more than 3% higher conversion rates in tests," Li said on the call. She framed the creative tools as especially adopted by small and medium-sized businesses.

Monetization plans and current revenue

Meta told investors it's not yet charging most businesses for the business AI features. "Business AIs today are currently free for most businesses on our messaging apps," Mark Zuckerberg said during the conference call. He added that Meta expects to work toward a longer-term monetization model as the products mature.

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The company also flagged other app-driven revenue in the quarter. Meta said its apps generated $885 million in revenue during the period. The company attributed much of that figure to demand for paid messaging on WhatsApp and to subscription sales across its apps.

Meta is testing a WhatsApp Plus subscription. The trial version gives users custom icons, themes and notification sounds, the company said. Meta reported a profit of $26.8 billion in the first quarter on the call.

Who benefits, and who changes behavior

Small businesses are the immediate focus of Meta's business AI push. The company said the tools are provided free to most small firms on its messaging platforms. That lowers the cost of testing AI for many merchants and service providers that rely on messaging to talk with customers.

Advertisers are also seeing new tools to automate creative work. Meta said more than 8 million advertisers accessed at least one GenAI creative tool. The company reported that video generation tests improved conversion rates by more than 3% in its trials.

For advertisers, the change means creative production can move faster. And for small firms, automated messaging and creative tools can reduce manual workload. Meta's strategy aims to increase product adoption before it introduces direct charges for business AI.

Context and company strategy

Meta has pushed into AI across its product lineup since creating a dedicated Superintelligence Labs division. The company said Muse Spark will power an expanding set of business features. That suggests Meta intends to centralize model development and product deployment under one team.

The company is balancing growth with monetization planning. Meta is using free access to reach scale quickly. The firm said it wants high usage numbers before it settles on how to charge businesses for AI services.

At the same time, Meta is tying AI tools to ad products. The Ads AI Connectors open beta is an example. Meta told investors the connector will let advertisers hook their accounts to agents that can act on ad data and creative workflows. That could change how campaigns are planned and executed inside Meta's ad ecosystem.

Meta didn't provide details about how it will price future business AI offerings on the call. The company also didn't disclose specific security or data-handling rules for the business AI beta in its remarks. Meta did say it rolled the beta out across multiple regions, indicating it has operational setups in place for international testing.

The company highlighted continued investment in creative AI for advertisers. Meta said usage among small and medium businesses is particularly strong. And CFO Susan Li linked the creative tools to improved ad conversions in the tests she discussed.

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Meta said apps generated $885 million and reported $26.8 billion in profit; it offered no pricing or data-handling details for business AI.

This article was created with AI assistance.