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Facebook videos will be recommended by AI, as it takes on TikTok

Clicking on a video in your normal Facebook friend feed can be a dangerous step, as it opens in a new Facebook videos window, with a TikTok-style endless feed of unrelated clips. That’s intended to suck you in, and the social media platform wants to get even better at this …

Engadget reports that the Facebook videos feed will in future be driven by AI.

Meta is revamping how Facebook recommends videos across Reels, Groups, and the main Facebook Feed, by using AI to power its video recommendation algorithm, Facebook head Tom Alison revealed on Wednesday.

The world’s largest social network has already switched Reels, its TikTok competitor, to the new engine, and plans to use it in all places within Facebook that show video — the main Facebook feed and Groups — as part of a “technology roadmap” through 2026, [senior exec] Tom Alison said at a Morgan Stanley tech conference in San Francisco.

The company says that when it made the switch for Reels, watch time increased by 8-10%, which it sees as a sign of being on the right track.

“Instead of just powering Reels, we’re working on a project to power our entire video ecosystem with this single model, and then can we add our Feed recommendation product to also be served by this model,” Alison said. “If we get this right, not only will the recommendations be kind of more engaging and more relevant, but we think the responsiveness of them can improve as well.”

The company’s battle with TikTok may not last for too long, at least in the US – as plans to ban the app from the country took a further step yesterday.

Photo by Noiseporn on Unsplash

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Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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