Meta Recruits Salesforce AI Chief Clara Shih for New Business AI Division
Meta hires Salesforce AI CEO Clara Shih to lead a new Business AI group focused on bringing Llama-based tools to businesses on its social platforms. The move signals Meta's strategy to boost ad revenue through AI-generated content rather than direct AI subscriptions.
Meta hires Salesforce’s CEO of AI, Clara Shih, to lead a newly formed Business AI group focused on developing AI tools for businesses. The company confirms this appointment as part of a broader vision to make cutting-edge AI accessible to every business that operates on Meta’s family of apps. Adam Evans, another Salesforce AI executive, steps in to take over Shih’s previous role at Salesforce.
Unlike competitors such as OpenAI or Google, Meta does not rely on selling direct subscriptions to its AI chatbots to generate revenue. Instead, the company bets that its open-source Llama large language models enhance its existing platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. This new Business AI group builds on that strategy by offering Llama-powered products directly to the millions of businesses that advertise and create content across Meta's social ecosystem.
While the exact features of these upcoming tools remain unclear, they likely include options for businesses to easily create AI-generated advertisements. Meta already pushes more AI-generated content into user feeds, marking a notable shift from its previous focus on exclusively human-generated posts. Providing businesses with cheap AI tools to generate ads potentially drives up overall ad spending, which serves as Meta's primary source of revenue.