Everyday Privacy

Does Meta use my Meta AI chats to show me ads?

Short answer: Yes, in most countries. Since December 16, 2025, Meta uses what you type or say to Meta AI to personalize the ads and content you see on Facebook, Instagram, and its other apps, and there is no opt-out. People in the EU, the UK, and South Korea are excluded.

Meta announced the change on October 1, 2025, notified users from October 7, and switched it on on December 16, 2025. Since then, your conversations with Meta AI, whether typed or spoken, count as one more signal for the ads and posts Meta shows you, alongside things like the pages you like and the accounts you follow. It applies to Meta AI wherever you use it, including inside Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. In Meta’s own example, chatting with Meta AI about hiking could lead to recommendations for hiking groups and ads for hiking boots.

What Meta says it leaves out. Meta says it does not use conversations about religious views, sexual orientation, political views, health, racial or ethnic origin, philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership to show you ads. Privacy advocates have questioned how well that kind of filtering works in practice, but it is Meta’s stated rule.

Where it does not apply. The change excludes people in the European Union, the United Kingdom, and South Korea, where privacy law sets stricter conditions on this kind of use. Everywhere else, it is on for anyone who uses Meta AI.

There is no switch to turn it off. Meta did not add an opt-out. The only way to keep a conversation out of your ad profile is not to have it with Meta AI. Your regular messages to friends and family are not part of this; it covers your chats with the AI.

What you can do:

  • Keep sensitive or personal topics out of Meta AI. Treat it more like a public post than a private message, and use a different assistant for anything you’d rather not have shaping your ads.
  • Review your ad preferences. In Accounts Center, Ad preferences lets you see and hide ad topics and manage some of the information used for ads. It won’t stop AI chats from counting, but it can soften the result.
  • Keep your prompts private in the Meta AI app. Under your profile icon, go to Data & Privacy → Manage your information and turn on Make all your prompts visible to only you, then turn off Suggesting your prompts on other apps. This is about who can see your prompts, not ads, but it closes a separate and more visible leak.

Muse is handled differently. Meta’s newer AI agent, Muse, which launched in the US in September 2026, connects to your other accounts to do tasks for you. Meta says Muse does not share people’s conversations or data with its ads systems.

For the full set of Meta AI controls, including who can object to AI training on their posts, see the Meta AI privacy guide. For account-wide ad and data settings, see the Meta account guide.

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