Meta adds AI video and lifecycle tools to Ads Manager, tests an AI assistant that can run campaigns
On 6 October 2026 Meta announced a set of AI features for Ads Manager. Two of them are available to every advertiser now, while the assistant that can build and change campaigns for you is only being tested.
Live now for all advertisers: Customer Lifecycle Strategy and video made from your static images in Advantage+ creative.
The assistant that can set up campaigns, change targeting and move budgets is still a test, as is in-chat checkout.
This week: turn your best product photos into short video ads and keep existing customers out of acquisition campaigns.
What happened
Meta used its Advertising Week New York presentation on 6 October 2026 to announce a batch of AI features for advertisers, published on its Meta for Business news page. The list is long, but the features sit at very different stages. Some are switched on for everyone today, some are rolling out gradually, and several are only tests or are promised for later in the year.
For a business running Facebook and Instagram ads from India, the useful question is simple: what can we use this week, and what should we just keep an eye on?
What you can use now
Video from static images (generally available). Inside Advantage+ creative, Ads Manager can now turn product photos and other still images you already have into video ads. For small brands without a video budget, this lowers the cost of testing video in Reels and Stories.
Customer Lifecycle Strategy (available to all advertisers). It lets you tell Meta which kind of audience a campaign is for, and for acquisition campaigns it recommends excluding people who are already your customers. Meta is also testing a single "Audience Label" to exclude a whole group of existing customers in one step.
Ads Creative Studio (rolling out). A space for creative insights, such as which creatives work best for each campaign objective, plus video generation and editing of hooks, captions, audio and clip length. It is reaching more advertisers after summer tests, so it may not be in your account yet.
The headline feature, a Meta AI business assistant that can plan and create campaigns, generate creative, update targeting and change budgets through a chat, is only starting to be tested. Meta says these actions come with previews and approvals. Scheduled reports and alerts, importing your brand guidelines into the assistant, and direct checkout inside Messenger (with Shopify) and Meta AI (with partners including PayPal and Stripe) are also tests. AI audience discovery in Detailed Targeting, where you describe your ideal customer in plain words, is promised "by the end of the year". Catalog product video is in beta for eligible advertisers.
Meta did not give a country-by-country rollout plan, so check your own Ads Manager before planning around any of these.
What Indian businesses should do now
Test image-to-video. Pick your three best-selling product photos, generate short videos in Advantage+ creative, and run them against your current image ads with the same budget for at least a week.
Review every generated video before it goes live. Check prices, product details and any text overlays, especially for offers or regulated categories.
Separate new and existing customers. Set up Customer Lifecycle Strategy on acquisition campaigns, and make sure your customer lists are up to date so the exclusion actually works. Accurate conversion tracking that matches your real sales makes these signals far more useful.
Do not hand over budgets yet. When the agent features reach your account, start with suggestions and previews, and keep approvals with a person.
Our take: what this means for Indian businesses
We would start with the two features that are live today, because they solve real problems for small advertisers: not enough video, and money wasted showing "new customer" offers to people who already buy from you.
This week we would test image-to-video on a client's top products against their current image ads.
We would switch on Customer Lifecycle Strategy for acquisition campaigns after cleaning up the customer list.
The AI assistant that changes budgets is worth watching, but we would keep a person approving every change until it has a track record.
