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Meta—the company behind Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Meta AI—has announced plans to begin scraping your interactions with its generative AI chatbots and tools (conversations via text or voice) to personalize ads and content across its platforms: Facebook, and Instagram.
This development will go into effect on December 16, 2025, and starting from October 7, the company will begin sending out in-product notifications and emails to users regarding the latest development. However, Meta has made it cleared that the launch won't impact the EU and South Korea at first. But the rest of world will see the changes.
It's seen that regions like the United Kingdom (UK), the European Union (EU), and South Korea stricter data privacy regulations. Maybe with time, Meta will find a way to sort things out with these regulators.
The company also emphasized that while many topics in those chats may be used to “influence content and ads,” sensitive data such as political views, health, sexual orientation, philosophical beliefs (or trade union membership), race (or ethnicity), etc. will not be used for ad targeting.
With that being said, it's also important to let you know that the option to opt-out of this Meta AI's scraping is not confirmed yet. While some reports say you can opt-out, WSJ says "there will be no way to opt out of this."
From Chat to Targeted Ads and The Revenue Reality
In the announcement Meta made about the preparation to use conversations with its AI chatbots as yet another data point for ad targeting. The company offered a simple example: if you chat about hiking, don’t be surprised when your feed starts filling with suggestions for local hiking groups, posts from friends about trails, and ads for boots.
“People’s interactions simply are going to be another piece of the input that will inform the personalization of feeds and ads,” Christy Harris, Meta’s privacy policy manager, told Reuters.
On one hand, this isn’t new—ads have followed our browsing habits across the internet for years. What is new is that one-on-one conversations, which used to feel more private, are now being folded into the same system. It’s a reminder that AI chatbots aren’t really companions; they’re part of a massive advertising engine.
And the stakes are high. In 2024, nearly 97% of Meta’s revenue came from digital advertising, according to Bloomberg. That reliance forces the company to balance strict regulatory demands with the need to protect its core business. Paid subscriptions may help offset those pressures, but for now, making conversations fair game for targeting ads is the more immediate play.
