Meta Wants Users to Pay for AI. A New Subscription Is Launching

Meta is beginning to test whether artificial intelligence can become a product that users are willing to pay for directly. The company has launched Meta One, a new subscription service combining advanced AI features with Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. This marks a significant shift in the company’s approach. For years, Meta has primarily developed AI to make its platforms more attractive and improve the performance of its advertising business. Now, the company wants to find out how much users are willing to pay for access to more advanced capabilities.

According to media reports, Meta One includes more than 50 new features. They cover areas such as content creation, increasing reach, engaging with audiences, as well as tools designed for businesses and online creators. Meta says that around 15 million people are already using the service through subscriptions and testing programs. For a company with billions of users, this still represents a relatively small share of its overall user base, but the scale highlights the potential of the initiative. Even a relatively small percentage of users opting for paid access could eventually create an entirely new source of revenue for Meta.

Until now, artificial intelligence has primarily been a tool supporting Meta’s existing business. Algorithms determine what content users see, help advertisers target audiences more effectively, and generative AI is becoming increasingly integrated into the everyday use of the company’s apps. Meta has therefore mainly monetized AI indirectly. Meta One represents an attempt to create a market in which users pay directly for the capabilities offered by artificial intelligence.

This could prove much more important than the launch of yet another service might suggest. Meta has a huge advantage that most generative AI companies do not have. Its apps are used by billions of people every day, and users are already accustomed to the company’s services. Meta therefore does not have to build a separate platform from scratch and convince people to start using it. It can sell additional features directly within an environment users already know.

The key question will be whether Meta can convince people that the paid version genuinely offers more than the free features already available in its apps. The mere presence of AI is no longer a sufficient selling point. More and more services offer text and image generation, as well as assistance with everyday tasks, at no additional cost. Meta will therefore have to identify features that users genuinely consider valuable enough to justify the subscription price.

If it succeeds, the company will have an opportunity to develop a business model that has so far barely existed at this scale within its operations. Meta could continue to generate most of its revenue from advertising while also selling some of its most advanced AI features directly to users, creators, and businesses. With billions of users, even a small conversion rate to paid plans could have a meaningful impact on the group’s overall revenue.

At this stage, it is still unclear whether Meta One will become a major business. Having 15 million users across subscriptions and testing programs is a promising start, but the coming months will show how many of them remain paying customers and whether the service can attract a significantly larger audience. Meta does, however, have something that most of its competitors cannot easily replicate: direct access to a massive user base across its platforms. The company is now trying to convince those users that its most advanced version of AI is worth paying for.

Source: XTB Research