Facebook reaches milestone with 2 billion daily users, focuses on AI

Facebook has announced that it has reached a major milestone with two billion daily active users, the highest it’s ever been.
The social networking giant announced that its focus this year is on artificial intelligence, messaging, creators and monetization.
“Facebook is off to a great start this year. Contrary to reports otherwise, Facebook is not dead nor dying, but in fact alive and thriving with two billion daily active users. People are using Facebook for more than connecting with friends and family, but also to discover and engage around what is most important to them. Today, I want to share more about what we are doing to deliver the best Facebook experience to people using AI and the opportunities we’re creating for creators,” said Tom Alison, Head of Facebook.
AI-powered discovery

Over the last nearly 20 years, people have come to Facebook for lots of things, including to see what’s going on with their friends, family and groups where meaningful connection happens. There has been a shift the last couple years with people coming to Facebook more to be entertained, discover something new or see what’s going on in the world. These new reasons are why it is investing in AI-powered discovery.

“There are billions of people on Earth doing interesting things at any given time and we’re working on opening up that world for more people by showing you content you’re likely interested in. We aim to give everyone tools to express themselves in the format that works best for them: whether it’s text, photo or video. And we make it easy for people to share with the audience that matters most to them. Sometimes that’s with friends, sometimes with a group, and increasingly many people want to share publicly. We believe our combination of simple-to-use formats, easy access to your most important audiences and world-class AI that can deliver content to the people who will appreciate it the most — will make Facebook the best place for social discovery and sharing,” said Tom Alison.
This work is especially key for Reels, which continue to grow quickly across its apps both in production and consumption. “I’m optimistic about the trends we’re seeing here, with more than 140 billion Reels plays across Facebook and Instagram each day. At Facebook, we’re using AI to recommend all types of content beyond Reels: photos, text, groups, short- and long-form videos and more. This is a massive technological undertaking and AI-powered recommendations are delivered and refined in response to people’s direct feedback through tools like our Show More or Show Less feature. We also have safeguards to make sure that recommendations are not harmful and don’t go against our community standards,” he added.
He shared one example of how this work is providing a new experience on Facebook: Groups. Previously, you might be invited to a Group by a friend, search for a Group based on a specific need or interest or see a Groups you should join suggestion. Using AI to find public Group content based on your interests, Facebook can now show you highly relevant content from public Groups in your Feed– without you having to do any searching or depending on word of mouth to uncover a Group.
Creators and monetization

An important part of it work on AI-powered recommendations to connect you to people you want to know or should know is fueling creator discovery on Facebook.
Creators have a lot of options these days, and while Facebook isn’t always creators’ primary platform, it’s an important app for creators to be on as they continue their journey — offering the opportunity to reach a large global audience, to connect safely and more deeply with their communities and to access one of the most effective slate of monetization offerings of any creator app.
“We use AI to identify creators who may appeal to your interests and to improve how we recommend Reels and other great content from creators in your Feed. Beyond recommendations, we’ve introduced several features to make it easier to find creators you’ll love: a rising creator label for popular creators, a suggestion unit in Feed recommending creators you should follow and a more consistent Follow action to help you follow creators you discover in recommendations or in comments on Facebook. We’re heavily invested in building tools for creators. We’ve been working to greatly simplify the Facebook experience for creators, rolling out more formats for creative expression, providing tools to help grow and manage fan communities, and expanding ways to earn income as a creator on Facebook,” said Tom.

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