According to a LinkedIn post from Shih on Tuesday, Meta has appointed Salesforce’s CEO of AI, Clara Shih, to oversee a new organization that specializes in the development of AI tools for businesses that utilize Meta’s applications to communicate with consumers
“I am very excited to announce that I have joined Meta as the leader of a new Business AI group,” Shih stated today. “Our goal for this new product group is to ensure that all businesses have access to state-of-the-art AI, thereby enabling them to thrive and take control of their future in the AI era.”
TechCrunch has learned that Adam Evans, an additional Salesforce AI executive, will assume Shih’s position as the company’s AI director. Evans is currently the executive vice president and general manager of AI at Salesforce, as indicated by his LinkedIn profile.
Meta employs an unconventional business model in the realm of AI, asserting that it employs an open source approach, albeit one that may not be universally recognized.
In order to generate revenue, Mark Zuckerberg’s organization does not offer a subscription to its AI chatbots, such as OpenAI or Google.
Meta is instead wagering that its Llama large language models will significantly enhance its current family of applications. It appears that these AI tools for enterprises are a component of that endeavor.
In particular, Meta’s new organization will provide AI products that are developed with Llama to the millions of businesses that advertise and generate content on WhatsApp, Facebook, and Instagram.
It is uncertain what specific tools Meta could provide to these individuals; however, it is probable that they will provide tools for the creation of AI-generated advertisements.
Meta has recently implemented more AI-generated content in its social media channels. This includes a carousel of AI-generated photos on Facebook and AI chatbots that imitate content creators on Instagram.
That represents a significant change for Meta’s platforms, which had previously exclusively featured content that was generated by humans. Meta could potentially generate substantial revenue by providing businesses with tools to generate additional advertisements at a reduced cost.
It is uncertain whether Meta will be selling these AI tools or whether they will be provided free of charge as a strategy to increase ad expenditure, which is the company’s primary source of revenue.
“We believe these latest advancements in AI represent a significant opportunity for businesses to drive more efficiencies and significantly improve the experiences they offer their customers,” said Meta’s VP and Head of Monetization, John Hegeman, in an emailed statement to TechCrunch. “This new product group under Clara’s leadership will help us bring that vision to life.”
Shih was previously responsible for Salesforce’s AI initiatives, which have not been particularly successful. Salesforce’s shares experienced their largest decline since 2008 in May, primarily due to investors’ concerns that the enterprise behemoth had failed to capitalize on the AI boom.
At that time, the enterprise behemoth informed investors that it anticipated the slowest growth rate in its history in the forthcoming quarter. Salesforce has since made a significant investment in artificial intelligence (AI) by introducing an AI agent developer platform known as Agentforce.
Marc Benioff, the CEO of the company, has even taken to the offensive, publicly criticizing Microsoft’s enterprise AI initiatives.
Salesforce did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment on the record immediately.
It appears that Shih will have the opportunity to establish a new venture at Meta, a company about which she authored a book in 2009 entitled “The Facebook Era.”
