Meta introduces ads in Threads; issues updates to Ray-Ban Meta glasses

Two important announcements came from Meta during the last couple days, both highlighting its growing focus on artificial intelligence (AI). To start with, it introduced ads in Threads, its text-based app for conversations and comments. The ads will appear between the pieces of content in the Threads home feed.

These ads will also be supported by Meta’s inventory filter feature that facebook advertisers already benefit from. Enabled through AI, inventory filter allows advertisers to control the sensitivity level of organic content next to which their ads are placed. Termed Threads feed, these new ad placements will be by default for new campaigns for using either Advantage+ or Manual Placements.

The AI-powered Advantage+ campaigns create optimised ads through automation and machine learning to improve ad delivery in terms of reaching the right audience at the right time.

While Threads feeds will be in the form of image ads appearing in between user conversations, they can also be displayed in full screen post views.

The new Threads ads will be integrated with Meta’s other platforms to deliver combo-plan benefits to advertisers. “Advertisers can place ads on Threads by extending their Instagram or Facebook ads to Threads,” the company said.

A platform watched closely by brand advertisers since its launch in July 2023, Threads is seen as a potential competitor to X. According to Meta, the platform already has over 30 crore monthly active users worldwide.

The rise is noticeable, especially given that the market leader X, in comparison, has only about 58.6 crore active users even after 19 years since its launch as ‘Twitter’ (Data source: Statista). Given Meta’s cross-integration with other platforms and an ability to provide combined plans across platforms, Threads may generate interest amongst brands and agencies as a new platform to advertise on.

In another move, Meta has announced its plans to introduce its Ray-Ban Meta glasses in India soon. This news came as part of its announcement of addition of new features to its AI-powered smart glasses made in collaboration with EssilorLuxottica.

The new features added include integration with Instagram, extension of Meta AI Vision capabilities to new markets, and enhanced live translation capabilities under v1.1 software update. The new features will be available in all the markets that Ray-Ban Meta glasses are currently available in. That includes the USA, Canada, and a few European countries. Meta stated that the product would soon be available with all these features in India, Mexico, and the United Arab Emirates. The date of the proposed launh, however, has not been disclosed.

Users can send and receive messages, photos, and make and receive audio calls via Instagram by simply speaking to these glasses. For instance, to send a message to someone, a user can say, ‘Hey Meta, send a message to on Instagram.’ and the message will get delivered.

The company is extending the access to music-streaming apps including Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music, and Shazam beyond the USA and Canada. Users can ask Meta AI to play the music they want to listen to in all the markets that Ray-Ban Meta glasses are currently available in. However, for this, users need to set English as their default language at the moment. Users can also converse with Meta AI asking it to identify the songs or specify the release dates of music albums.

Meta is also making the Vision capabilities of these glasses in all the countries that the glasses are available in. Meta AI’s Vision feature allows users to ask Meta AI what they seeing and Meta AI provides details about the objects being seen by them. Meta introduced limited avaialability of Vision in April 2024.

Meta has also extended the support for live translation feature to four languages including English, Spanish, French, and Italian. Users can also use the feature off-line or in airplane mode once the relevant language packs are downloaded.

So far, there has been no announcement from Meta about any plans to introduce ad delivery to Ray-Ban Meta glasses. However, if and when that happens, the new features such as Instagram integration and extending music-streaming apps access to new markets may potentially offer new opportunities for advertisers. If, in future, Meta enables ad delivery to the glasses, it will will provide advertisers with one more cosumer engagement platform to leverage.