What Meta has changed

Meta has updated its Commercial Terms, the contract that covers every business advertising on Facebook and Instagram. The new version comes into effect on 30 October 2026. You won't be asked to sign anything. If you keep running ads after that date, you've accepted it.

The part that matters for advertisers is a new section on AI features. Adweek reported that it makes you "solely responsible" for whatever Meta's AI creates or changes in your ads. That includes features Meta switches on itself. The terms also say the AI "may make mistakes", and that the risk sits with you.

Under the old wording, you carried that risk only if you chose to use Meta's AI tools. That's the real shift. Meta told Adweek the update is housekeeping, folding its separate AI ad terms into the main contract, and that you can turn off individual Advantage+ features in Ads Manager at any time. It didn't directly say whether you're liable for features you never turned on.

What these AI features do

Advantage+ creative is Meta's name for a set of automatic tweaks to your ads. Depending on the ad, it can adjust brightness, add music, crop images for different placements, add links to other pages on your site, translate your text, and generate new images or short videos from your own photos.

Agencies quoted by Adweek say some of these are being applied without anyone asking, sometimes on ads where nobody had switched them on. Bookshop.org found an AI-generated illustration added to an ad made by a person, after an account update opted it in. It has since turned off all of Meta's AI ad features.

Another change on 28 October

Two days earlier, Meta plans to turn on something called product browsing for ads that are already running. PPC Land reported that Meta's notice describes people seeing product details and suggestions inside Facebook or Instagram when they tap your ad, instead of going straight to your website. Unless you opt out, it applies from 28 October. It sits in the same Advantage+ creative settings, and you can switch it off per ad.

What it means for a business like yours

Most of these tweaks are harmless. Some help. A brightness adjustment or a better crop for Stories won't hurt anyone.

The risk is in the ones that change what your ad says or shows. A translated headline you can't read. An AI image of a product that doesn't look like yours. A link to a page with last year's prices. For most businesses that's embarrassing. For a dental practice, a solicitor, a financial adviser or anyone selling to a regulated standard, it could be a complaint or a breach of advertising rules. The new terms make it clearer that it's your problem either way.

Timing makes it worse. Black Friday is on 27 November. If you sell online, you're about to load new offers and creative into Meta, which is exactly when settings you'd turned off can come back on. Duplicating an ad or swapping the image can reset them.

None of this means you should stop advertising on Meta. It means somebody needs to look at what's switched on in your account this week, and keep checking.

What I'd do before 30 October

1. Decide on product browsing

If you sell products and your website checkout works well, I'd opt out for now. You want to see what happens when people land on your own pages, where your tracking works and your offers are right. You can always test product browsing later as a controlled experiment against your normal ads, and judge it on sales. If you run lead generation ads, check the setting anyway.

2. Go through every live ad's creative settings

Open each active ad and look at the Advantage+ creative section. The options are sometimes collapsed, so expand them. Turn off anything that can change your words or create new images: text changes, translations, generated images and videos, and added links. Leave the light-touch visual tweaks on if you're comfortable with them. Then look at the previews for each placement before you publish.

Check the account-level advertising settings too. There have been reports of ad-level choices being overridden by an account setting that tests new enhancements automatically.

3. Recheck whenever you edit

Every time you duplicate an ad, change the image or video, or build a new campaign from a template, open the creative settings again. Meta's recommended options can come back on. Make it part of your launch checklist, the same as checking the link works.

4. Look at what's already gone out

Open the previews for your live ads in Ads Manager, across each placement. Start with your best-performing ads, since they've had the most views. If something has been added that you wouldn't have approved, edit the ad and republish it without that feature.

5. Keep a note of what you changed

A dated note of which features you turned off, on which ads, is worth having. If an ad ever goes out with something you didn't approve, you can show you'd switched it off. It also helps whoever picks up the account after you.

For agencies

If you manage Meta accounts for clients, this lands on you as well. Your clients will assume you checked. I'd send a short note this week explaining the change, what you've switched off and what you've left on, and get their agreement in writing for anything that alters copy or imagery. If you need extra hands to audit a batch of accounts before Black Friday, that's the kind of work I do through white-label PPC and paid social support.

Should you turn everything off?

Not necessarily. Some enhancements do improve results, and Meta's system works better when it has room to test. The problem is letting Meta decide what counts as your brand without anyone checking.

My approach is to switch off anything that changes the message by default. I'll test one feature at a time, on one ad set, against a version without it. If it brings in more sales or better leads at a lower cost, it stays. If it only lifts clicks, it goes. It's the same thinking I'd apply to Google's automation, which I wrote about in what AI Max and Performance Max change for your Google Ads.

In short

From 30 October, whatever Meta's AI adds to your ads is your responsibility, whether you asked for it or not. Product browsing switches on two days before. Neither is a reason to panic. Both are a reason to open Ads Manager this week and see what's switched on.

If you'd like someone to go through your account before Black Friday, that's part of how I run Meta ads for businesses in Bristol and the South West. Send me a message below and tell me what you're running.