On July 27, Meta Platforms' Reels, a rival to TikTok, gained attention for its growth in popularity among users and advertisers. Meta revealed numbers indicating that Reels is rapidly catching up to TikTok in terms of videos and ad revenue. Meta's improving recommendation software, which used to be a strong point for TikTok, has contributed to the success of Reels. Justin Osofsky, Meta's head of online sales, operations, and partnerships, highlighted the opportunity for monetization that Reels' growth presents. Meta has invested in artificial intelligence for years and is now prioritizing it to enhance content recommendations and ads across its services. Reels' business size is comparable to that of TikTok, which generated $9. 9 billion in worldwide ad revenue last year.

Advertisers find it easy to place their promotions on Reels using Meta's ad platform. Susan Li, Meta's CFO, stated that over 75% of Meta's advertisers are advertising on Reels. Despite concerns about Reels potentially diverting users' time from more profitable areas like the News Feed, Meta expects advertisers to embrace the format over time, just as they did with previous transitions. Although TikTok leads in terms of time spent on social media apps, Meta anticipates that Reels will generate less revenue than its Stories and Feed features due to slower scrolling through video content. U. S. senators, recognizing the risks of artificial intelligence, plan to hold hearings later this year to explore legislative safeguards.