Meta’s Business AI Is Quietly Hitting 10 Million Conversations a Week

Meta doesn’t get the same buzz as OpenAI or Google in AI circles, but the numbers tell a different story. During its Q1 earnings call on Wednesday, the company revealed that its business AI tools are now facilitating about 10 million conversations per week as of late March. That’s up from just 1 million at the start of the year. Tenfold growth in three months is nothing to sneeze at.

The jump coincides with Meta expanding the beta program for its business AI assistant across the U.S., EMEA, APAC, and LATAM. They’ve been quietly rolling this out to more businesses, and it seems to be sticking.

Here’s the kicker: Meta isn’t charging for any of this yet. The business AI tools are free for most small businesses on its messaging apps. CEO Mark Zuckerberg dropped a hint on the call that this won’t last forever. “Business AIs today are currently free for most businesses on our messaging apps, but as we make more progress, we expect that we will also work towards establishing a longer-term monetization model.” Translation: they’re building scale now, and the billing will come later.

Under the hood, Meta is powering these tools with Muse Spark, the first large language model from its Meta Superintelligence Labs division, which was set up last year. It’s still early days, but having a dedicated lab for this stuff signals they’re serious.

The ad side is also picking up steam. CFO Susan Li noted that over 8 million advertisers are using at least one of Meta’s GenAI ad creative tools, with particularly strong adoption among small and medium businesses. The video generation feature is showing more than 3% higher conversion rates in tests. Not earth-shattering, but solid enough to keep advertisers interested.

Meta is also launching the open beta of Meta Ads AI Connectors this week, which lets advertisers link their Meta ad account to an AI agent. This feels like a natural extension of their existing tools, giving businesses more ways to automate without leaving Meta’s ecosystem.

On the financial side, the company reported profit of $26.8 billion for Q1, up from $16.6 billion a year ago. Revenue hit $56.3 billion, a 33% year-over-year increase. The apps business — including paid messaging on WhatsApp and subscriptions — contributed $885 million. They also started testing a WhatsApp Plus subscription earlier this month, which adds custom icons, themes, and notification sounds. It’s a small thing, but it shows they’re looking for ways to squeeze more revenue out of their user base.

I’m curious to see how the monetization plays out. Free tools are great for adoption, but businesses will need to see clear ROI before they start paying. If Meta can prove that its AI conversations actually drive sales or support costs down, they’ll have a solid case. If not, this could end up as another feature that gets used but never generates meaningful revenue.

For now, 10 million conversations a week is a nice milestone, but Meta needs to show it can turn that into money without alienating the small businesses that got them there.