By AndyRixon 
Meta is going after the SMB market in a big way
Mark Zuckerberg has launched the new Meta Small Business scheme designed to support entrepreneurs and small businesses use AI.
Per Axios reporting, the new SMB-focused feature comes as no surprise, with Meta long having relied on small businesses across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp – so further monetizing those customers in the era of AI was an inevitable.
It’s believed that around 250 million small businesses use Meta’s platforms globally, giving it a wide potential customer base.
Meta targets SMBs with new AI adoption push
The scheme revolves around a push to reduce the barrier to entry both for AI tools, and for business in general. The goal is to make it easier than ever to start and run a business, be it a small-scale side hustle or a seed of an idea that has potential to grow.
“In the AI era, it should be easier than ever for people to build new businesses,” Zuckerberg reportedly wrote.
“We want to build the services that enable this. This is important for ensuring that people broadly share in the prosperity created by superintelligence.”
Though the precise roadmap remains unclear, it’s likely that Meta Small Business will include features such as automated ad creation, AI-powered customer service for stretched SMBs, social media and advertising content generation and data-driven AI analytics and insights to give business owners clues as to how to scale.
While Meta’s fellow tech giants have been going after high-revenue enterprises, Meta leaning in on a higher number of lower-revenue SMBs could differentiate it in the short term and help make it a leader.
Focusing on SMBs will allow Meta to go harder on an end-to-end suite that supports entrepreneurs through the whole journey, from creation and advertising to sales and customer interaction.
With reports circulating that the company may be cutting thousands of jobs, any upcoming announcements may also include the new Small Business roadmap, including the potential re-hiring of any affected staff under this new vision.