Meta is expanding into business-focused AI services with a new division led by tech veteran Clara Shih, the company announced Thursday. The new Business AI group aims to make Meta's AI technology available to companies of all sizes.
Meta already connects with businesses through its social platforms, with 200 million companies using Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp for business communications each month. The company's open-source Llama language models have seen over 600 million downloads, while its Meta AI assistant serves more than 500 million active users monthly, Shih says.
The new B2B unit marks Meta's first major push to turn its AI technology and expertise into a dedicated business services offering. The move puts Meta in a space where Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic, and many others are already competing for enterprise customers. It remains unclear whether Meta will compete directly with these companies or focus on AI services that integrate with existing Meta products, such as advertising tools.
One hype meets another
The new division will also work on AI capabilities for Meta's AR and VR hardware. Shih described this combination of AI with augmented and virtual reality technology as an opportunity for businesses to benefit from Meta's global reach and AI capabilities. Meta recently implemented AI features in its consumer-oriented smart glasses, but it's easy to see how this could be useful in logistics, for example.
Shih brings significant social media and business technology expertise to the role. She founded Hearsay Systems, a company specializing in social media tools for sales teams, that was later acquired by Yext. She also wrote "The Facebook Era" in 2009.
Before joining Meta, Shih served as CEO of AI at Salesforce, where she worked on projects including the Agentforce developer platform for business process automation.
