The news: Meta unveiled 11 new AI advertising features at Cannes Lions 2025 and confirmed a $14 to $15 billion investment in Scale AI for a 49% stake, signaling its ambition to become a foundational player in global AI infrastructure.

• Meta’s AI-powered Advantage+ ad suite now includes features like brand-consistent automation (logos, fonts, color palettes), dynamic image-to-video generation, AI-generated product highlights, and voice-activated responses.
• Meta rolled out a new image-to-video tool on Facebook and Instagram that stitches together up to 20 product photos into polished, multi-scene clips, enabling small and midsize advertisers to produce high-quality video without external editing help.
• These tools help marketers quickly transform static assets into animated video ads, complete with music, overlays, and text—no production team required.
• Meta says Advantage+ Sales Campaigns deliver an average 22% boost in return on ad spend (ROAS), while Meta GEM, its generative recommendation model, improves conversions by up to 5%.

Zooming out: This adds to Meta’s growing suite of automated tools, including a text-to-image generator launched in May 2024 and an image-to-GIF tool which debuted last October.

Shifting the narrative:

• After CEO Mark Zuckerberg drew criticism for suggesting AI could eventually eliminate the need for creative, targeting, and measurement, Meta leaders have taken a more nuanced tone, emphasizing partnership rather than replacement.
• Meta’s VP of product management, Helen Ma, noted that AI will “unlock new avenues for creative expression.”
• In an interview with The Drum, global business group head Nicola Mendelsohn stressed that AI is scaling creativity in a manner never seen before, but isn’t replacing the discipline. She added that while creatives once made a few ads per year, AI now enables tens of thousands of variations daily—and more to come.

Our take: Some of the genAI tools launched at Cannes lower the creative barrier to entry, especially for small businesses, and help boost retention and ad spend across Meta’s platforms.

• At the same time, Meta is walking a tightrope by increasing automation while trying not to alienate agencies or brands that still value human input and control.
• Meta says tools like GEM and tone-of-voice AI help increase ad frequency without overwhelming users by making ads more personalized. Nicola Mendelsohn told The Drum that users respond better to ads that match their identity and interests.
• But there’s still a limit to how many ads users will accept, even if they’re personalized. Meta is betting that better targeting will improve performance enough to justify higher CPMs, rather than relying on more ad volume.