Meta rolled out a slate of agentic advertising tools and a Shopify-powered in-stream checkout on Oct. 8 at its Advertising Week New York presentation, sharpening the company's bid to turn AI conversations into direct commerce.

The announcements expand Meta's AI-powered business assistant with new memory, context and agentic capabilities that let advertisers update targeting, generate creative and shift budgets through conversational prompts. The assistant will also surface creative insights and import brand voice and strategy guidelines to refine output.

"This includes the context of what you tried last quarter, your seasonality, and the goals you've described," Meta said in describing the updated context layer.

What new capabilities does Meta's business assistant get?

The assistant gains scheduled tasks for recurring performance reports and alerts. Meta is testing importing tools that let brands upload strategy documents and brand voice guidelines so the assistant's recommendations stay on-message. Expanded agentic features let marketers generate creative elements, update targeting and change an ad's budget via chat.

Meta is opening its Ads Creative Studio, launched earlier in 2026, to more advertisers. The tool uses performance data and audience insights to surface what's working in campaigns and supplies AI guidance on next moves. Meta also broadened its Meta Ads MCP server so advertisers can plug third-party AI tools into building and managing campaigns.

How does Meta's video generation stack up?

Video is the biggest creative push. "In Advantage+ creative, advertisers and agencies can now generate video from existing static assets, a feature that is now generally available," Meta said. "In Ads Creative Studio, marketers can generate new video concepts and variations, and edit them with new tools to change hooks, adjust audio and clip length, add text overlays and captions, or change end scenes." Meta added simplified video generation from catalog listings and related product recommendations for upselling.

What does the Shopify checkout change?

Meta is partnering with Shopify on a direct checkout experience inside Meta Business Agent on Messenger, letting shoppers buy Shopify products without leaving the chat. The company is also testing similar direct checkout options for Meta AI with payments partners Adyen, PayPal, Shopify and Stripe.

Meta framed the move as a response to where discovery now happens. "People discover brands and products through creators they trust, communities they belong to, and AI that understands what they are looking for," the company said. "Increasingly, this is happening in Meta AI, Muse, and Meta Business Agent, where people ask, compare, and decide what to buy. So we're building partnerships with retailers to offer new ways to directly complete a purchase without leaving the conversation."

How are planning and creative tools shifting?

Meta is rolling out its Customer Lifecycle Strategy to all advertisers. The tool lets marketers dictate the audience for each campaign and ensures that recommendations and changes stay aligned with a top-level focus. The expansion pulls more planning inside Meta's own stack rather than leaving it to outside tools.

What's the commerce upside for brands?

The checkout push lands as Meta's Muse AI app is gaining traction with users, per Social Media Today. Pairing that consumer surface with in-chat Shopify transactions could turn the assistant into a measurable commerce channel rather than a discovery layer, making it a category advertisers will need to staff for in 2027 planning cycles.