Facebook Marketplace now lets Meta AI respond to buyers’ messages

Facebook Marketplace is rolling out new Meta AI features, including a feature to automatically reply to messages from interested buyers, Facebook announced Thursday. The social network also uses artificial intelligence to help sellers list items faster, summarizes profiles, and gives sellers the option to offer shipping on their listings.

The company says that since sellers receive a lot of buyer inquiries, it makes it easier to respond to initial messages with automated responses powered by Meta AI. Now when buyers inquire about the availability of an item, sellers can use Meta AI to automatically craft responses using information from their listing, such as description, availability, pickup location, and price. Sellers can enable, preview, and edit these automatic responses while creating the listing.

This new feature is designed to address a common problem with sellers, who often don’t want to spend too much time responding to initial or repetitive messages, such as asking if an item is available when it’s already marked as available. One seller even created its own AI tool last year to handle these initial inquiries from interested buyers.

Facebook Marketplace now also allows sellers to automatically list their items using Meta AI. After uploading a photo of an item, Meta AI can create a draft listing, fill in the details, and suggest a price based on similar items in the area.

Additionally, buyers will now see a summary of the seller’s Facebook profile at the top of their Marketplace page, including how long they’ve been on Facebook and how many friends they have. The overview also includes a summary of their Marketplace activity, such as their listing history, the types of items they sell, and their seller ratings.

Facebook says sellers can now also expand their reach by offering shipping on their listings. They can create prepaid shipping labels and easily track each order through a simple dashboard.

The new AI features join existing Meta AI integrations in Facebook Marketplace, including a tool that helps buyers ask the right questions when making a purchase, as well as AI-powered insights for vehicle listings.