Meta has introduced Seller, an application separate from Facebook Marketplace, specifically designed to support sellers who use the social network to trade goods. This new tool offers an exclusive environment for managing listings, monitoring customer dialogues, and creating new business proposals.
Facebook Marketplace was established ten years ago, arising from Meta's realization that numerous people were already buying and selling items through Facebook. Over time, this service has become one of the platform's most popular features, hosting listings for various goods, such as clothing, furniture, and used cars.
Currently, the company seeks to offer more robust support to users who have turned the tool into a constant source of business. Seller allows users to access their Facebook profiles and maintain previously published listings.
The Seller app concentrates several useful functionalities, including direct access to messages exchanged with potential buyers, an informative dashboard with data on past listings, the ability to create new sales listings, and the integration of artificial intelligence tools to assist in filling out product descriptions.
Tom Alison, head of Facebook, commented to The New York Times that these tools function as a complement to the main application, aiming to serve more engaged user communities, emphasizing that the project is still in the initial experimentation phase.
The launch of Seller is part of a larger company strategy focused on developing applications targeted at so-called advanced users, a group that includes both Marketplace sellers and community administrators on Facebook. In May, Meta also launched Forum, an application aimed at users of Facebook Groups. These moves occur while the social network tries to maintain its relevance against the growth of other platforms, such as Instagram.
Although there are large investments in artificial intelligence, advertising remains Meta's primary source of revenue, with Facebook and Instagram financing a large part of these projects. Marketplace has established itself as a strong point for keeping users active, as Meta states that over 430 million items are advertised monthly on the platform, including about 44 million vehicles.
Seller incorporates AI features to simplify listing creation. This technology has the capacity to analyze product images and automatically fill in offer information, which reduces the number of steps required for sellers. Meta's goal, as stated, is to optimize time without eliminating essential communication between buyers and sellers.
On Friday, the 24th, Meta announced a significant improvement to its artificial intelligence chatbot. This update expands the tool's capabilities beyond existing functions, such as generating responses, creating images, and drafting documents, by incorporating new features focused on personal organization, detailed research, and task planning.
The new feature allows the assistant to access the user's calendar data to generate daily summaries, assist in selecting dates for appointments, and support overall activity organization. Meta claims that these additions are part of a larger strategy to transform its AI into a true personal assistant.
The initial launch is available in specific markets, accessible through both the Meta AI app and the service's web version. The company communicated that expansion to other regions and platforms, including WhatsApp, will be implemented in the coming weeks.
Meta presented this update as an evolution of the chatbot, which now includes tools to monitor repetitive tasks and suggest actions based on context provided by the user. It is possible to configure the system once so that it executes certain functions continuously, without the need for constant commands.
Among the practical examples cited by the company are the creation of weekly meal schedules, alerts about the need to restock items, and the drafting of daily agenda summaries. Furthermore, the assistant can help with practical searches, such as locating used furniture on Facebook Marketplace while respecting a predefined budget for renovations.
The tool has also received dedicated features for events and searches. According to Meta, the chatbot has the ability to find restaurants suitable for a specific occasion and cross-reference this information with the user's schedule to identify a compatible day. Additionally, the system now produces reports, presentations, and plans using information collected from the internet. Another innovation allows users to redirect the search while the answer is still being generated, following a pattern seen in other AI assistants.
This update is powered by the Muse Spark 1.1 model, which Meta designated as responsible for increasing the chatbot's abilities. The company associated this novelty with the concept of 'personal superintelligence,' a term used by CEO Mark Zuckerberg when discussing the future of artificial intelligence.
This change signals a shift in the company's previous approach. According to information attributed to journalist Alex Heath, Chris Cox, Meta's product director, had instructed employees last year to focus on entertainment and social connection, rather than productivity—an area where competitors like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic are strong. With these new features, Meta enters a more direct competition with the AI assistants developed by its rivals, seeking to increase the daily use of the tool through integration with organization, research, and planning tasks.
Employees of Meta Platforms filed a lawsuit in the United States, alleging that the company's artificial intelligence systems were responsible for selecting employees to be laid off. This litigation raises important questions about the challenges of proving the role of these technologies in employment decisions.
The dispute involves 26 employees who claim to have suffered harm due to criteria related to disabilities, family leave, or medical absences. The lawsuit, which is proceeding in the US, seeks a temporary suspension of the layoffs while the arguments presented by the parties are examined.
A central obstacle for the workers is proving how the AI tools were implemented internally by the corporation. Without access to the operating systems and the parameters used, the employees find it very difficult to gather robust evidence to support their claims.
This lawsuit against Meta is seen as one of the first legal actions to directly challenge the use of artificial intelligence in the workforce reduction process. The case also helps clarify why public disputes over technology-assisted labor decisions are still uncommon.
Experts cited in the case indicate that workers often have little knowledge about how companies use automated systems. Additionally, many professionals are subject to arbitration agreements, which divert certain conflicts from traditional justice to private procedures.
This combination of restricted access to information and procedural limitations makes it difficult to file class-action lawsuits. In these scenarios, employees risk losing the opportunity to take the case to a jury or seek compensation in public forums.
Lawyer Christine Webber, associated with civil rights and labor relations at the firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, emphasized that even if flaws in a system are identified, the information might remain restricted to the individual case. She told Reuters that even if there was proof that a specific system would repeatedly generate discriminatory results, there would be no way to disseminate this information to other employees. It is important to note that Webber does not represent the employees involved in the lawsuit against Meta.
Another example of artificial intelligence application in the workplace involves Workday, a human resources management software provider. This company was accused of operating a tool that allegedly eliminated job candidates based on attributes such as race, age, and disability. Workday refutes such accusations, and in this case, the issue of arbitration does not apply because Workday does not maintain such agreements with the clients' candidates.
In the lawsuit against Meta, the employees are seeking a court order to temporarily suspend the dismissals. Although workers' contracts provide an exception for urgent requests to the Court, such a measure is more commonly used in disputes related to trade secrets, not personnel cuts.
Initially, Judge William Orrick denied the request to block Meta's layoffs. His decision was based on the lack of sufficient evidence presented by the workers to contradict the company's version, according to which the choices were made by people, not by automated systems. However, the judge kept open the possibility of reevaluating his decision if evidence of improper use of artificial intelligence emerged. A hearing was scheduled for August 24, and both parties have the right to appeal.
The employees argue that Meta employed various internal AI tools during employee evaluations, including systems capable of monitoring productivity and the use of technological resources. They allege that these analyses harmed individuals who were absent for medical reasons or family responsibilities.
Among the tools mentioned in the petition is an internal assistant named 'Metamate,' described by the plaintiffs as an artificial intelligence-based support for employees. The petition also cites a productivity scoring system that would analyze data such as keyboard logs, screen content, emails, and browsing history.
Meta vehemently contests this interpretation. In documents filed with the court and in statements following the start of the process, the company stated that the decisions regarding the nearly 8,000 layoffs announced during that period were made by human beings. The company also denied that the use of artificial intelligence served as a criterion for selecting who would be dismissed or for evaluating performance.
The workers' lawyers acknowledge that the biggest difficulty lies in accessing the company's internal data. In a joint statement, they requested that both current and former Meta employees provide information on how the artificial intelligence tools were used in determining the cuts.
