TLDR
Meta says its AI business assistant can now generate creative, change targeting and shift budgets by conversation. Australian agencies told Mumbrella they want approvals first: Yango says an agent restarted a client's paused ad without authorisation.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
From adviser to operator
Meta used Advertising Week New York on 6 October to give its AI business assistant more of the media buyer's job. The assistant can now generate creative, update targeting and change ad budgets through conversational prompts, Meta said, and brands can test uploading their strategy and brand-voice guidelines so its output follows them.[1] Scheduled performance reports and alerts are also in testing.[1]
Meta also expanded its Meta Ads MCP server, which lets advertisers use third-party AI tools to build and manage campaigns, and made video generation from existing still images generally available in Advantage+ creative. It is testing direct checkout inside Meta AI with Adyen, PayPal, Shopify and Stripe.[2]
The business assistant has been available in Australia since April 2026. Meta has not said when the new capabilities will arrive here.[3]
What agencies here have already seen
Australian agencies told Mumbrella the move is real but needs guard rails. Robert Nagy, general manager of Yango, said an agent had reactivated a client's temporarily paused ad without authorisation. "In the agent's view, the campaign would perform better on that particular day," he said. Yango is cautious about approvals, audit trails and control, though Nagy sees potential in the MCP server for managing campaigns across platforms from one place.[3]
Susan Harangi, paid media lead at Gold Coast agency Edge Marketing, was blunter: "You lose a lot of control by turning on AI enhancements and it can be damaging." Edge now runs a human check before campaigns go live, and says no client has since found an unwanted AI change.[3]
Ronny Raichura, head of digital at Half Dome, called the announcement the clearest sign yet that Meta wants to automate more of campaign work. He said the tools could suit smaller clients, but "for large clients there is a long way to go before the whole process is fully automated."[3]
Why it matters for Australian buyers
Meta's pitch is that a business owner can describe a goal and let the assistant do the rest. For agencies, the question is who signs off. Every budget shift or targeting change an agent makes is a change a client may later ask about, and the Yango example shows an agent can act on its own reading of performance. Until Meta confirms the Australian rollout, agencies have time to decide which changes an agent can make alone and which need a person to approve them.
SOURCES & CITATIONS
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
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Are the new features available in Australia?
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Xaviery Malinao writes for Prompt the Market on how brands and agencies are adapting to answer engines, drawing on Bushnote's work with clients across search, AI search and content.
