Meta has hired Clara Shih, AI CEO at Salesforce, to lead a new organization building AI tools for businesses that use Meta’s apps to reach consumers, according to Shih’s LinkedIn post on Tuesday. Meta confirmed the appointment and new business AI group in a statement to TechCrunch.
“I’m excited to share today that I’ve joined Meta to lead our new Business AI group,” Shih said in a LinkedIn post. “Our vision for this new product group is to make cutting-edge AI accessible to every business, empowering everyone to succeed in the AI era and own their future.”
Meta has an unusual business model around AI, which not everyone defines, but claims to use an open-source approach. Mark Zuckerberg’s company doesn’t sell AI chatbot subscriptions like OpenAI or Google to generate revenue. Instead, Meta is confident that the Llama large language model will make its current suite of apps much better. These enterprise AI tools appear to be part of that effort.
Specifically, Meta’s new group will provide AI products made with Llama to the millions of businesses that advertise and create content on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. It’s unclear what kind of tools Meta can provide to these people, but it will likely provide tools to create AI-generated ads. Meta recently added more AI-generated content to its social media feeds, including a Facebook carousel of AI-generated photos and an AI chatbot that mimics content creators on Instagram.
This is a notable change for the Meta platform, which previously only dealt with human-generated content. Giving businesses the tools to generate more ads cheaply could be quite beneficial to Meta. It’s unclear whether Meta will sell these AI tools or offer them for free as a way to increase advertising spending, the company’s main source of revenue.
“We believe these latest advancements in AI represent a significant opportunity for businesses to increase efficiency and significantly improve the experience they deliver to their customers,” John Hegeman, vice president and head of monetization at Meta, said in an emailed statement to TechCrunch. He said. “This new product group, led by Clara, will help us realize that vision.”
Shih previously led Salesforce’s AI efforts, but without much success. Last May, Salesforce’s stock fell the most since 2008, as investors worried the giant had missed out on the AI boom. The conglomerate told investors at the time that it expected its slowest growth in the coming quarters. Since then, Salesforce has focused on AI and launched an AI agent developer platform called Agentforce. Microsoft CEO Marc Benioff went on the offensive, publicly criticizing Microsoft’s enterprise AI efforts.
Salesforce did not immediately respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment. As of now, it’s unclear who will take on the role of Shih.
Now it looks like Shih will have a chance to start something new at Meta, the company for which he wrote the book “The Facebook Era” in 2009.
