Zuckerberg launches Meta initiative to support entrepreneurs and AI adoption

Meta has announced a new initiative to support entrepreneurs and accelerate the adoption of artificial intelligence in small business. Mark Zuckerberg personally informed employees in an internal memo, an unusual format for announcements like this, and one that signals the topic is a strategic priority. According to the CEO, small business has always been central to Meta's business model, and the company intends to use entrepreneurs to speed up mass adoption of AI technologies across all its platforms.

The audience is huge. According to Meta, tens of millions of entrepreneurs worldwide already use Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp to promote products, attract customers and scale their businesses. This is the largest advertiser segment in the company's ecosystem and historically the foundation of its revenue. Still, Zuckerberg made clear that the current level of engagement is not enough. Meta wants to go further.

The company has not yet revealed the program's specific mechanisms. But based on the current direction of Meta's products, the likely areas can be outlined.

First, expanding Meta AI for business. Integrating the AI assistant into WhatsApp Business, Instagram Direct and Messenger would let entrepreneurs automate customer communication, answer queries around the clock and qualify leads without technical expertise.

Second, wider rollout of the Advantage+ line of advertising AI tools: automatic creative generation, personalized campaigns, smart budget allocation. Over the past two years Meta has significantly developed these capabilities, but access to them still requires a certain level of skill. The new initiative may lower that barrier for small advertisers.

Third, a possible launch of educational programs, partnerships with business accelerators and grant mechanisms for startups just beginning to learn AI.

The timing makes sense. Globally, only 20–30% of small businesses actively use AI tools in their daily work. The main barriers are the complexity of adoption, the lack of technical specialists and a poor understanding of concrete use cases. If Meta builds AI directly into interfaces entrepreneurs already know, the ones where they already run ads and talk to customers, it could become a real trigger for mass AI adoption. This is especially relevant for the emerging markets of Southeast Asia, Latin America and Africa, where Meta has historically held dominant positions.

Competition for entrepreneurs in the digital space has meanwhile intensified sharply. Google, Microsoft, Salesforce and Shopify have already rolled out large-scale programs supporting small business in the AI era: training courses, subsidies, special pricing and built-in AI features. Meta clearly does not intend to stand aside, especially since losing the entrepreneurial audience would hit advertising revenue directly, and advertising makes up the overwhelming share of the company's revenue.

The initiative fits naturally into Meta's broader AI strategy. In 2025–2026 the company sharply increased infrastructure investment: multibillion-dollar spending on data centers, development of its own AI chips, and active development of the open Llama model series, which millions of developers worldwide now use. The logic is simple: the more entrepreneurs use Meta's AI tools, the higher the ad spending and the greater the company's revenue.

For entrepreneurs, the signal is unambiguous: the platforms through which they already sell and talk to customers are getting smarter. Those who master the new AI tools before their competitors will gain a tangible advantage in service speed, customer acquisition cost and depth of personalization.

Now it remains to be seen when Zuckerberg will turn the promises in the memo into concrete product decisions.

*Meta is designated an extremist organization and banned in Russia.