Meta introduced several new artificial intelligence-powered tools and services to assist advertisers in efficiently creating ads and improving campaign results.

Meta unveiled the AI Sandbox at an event in New York, calling it a “testing playground” for advertisers to use as they experiment with new generative AI-powered ad tools.

It’s Meta’s latest attempt to demonstrate to investors and advertisers that large investments in the hot AI space are paying off, as the company deals with slowing ad growth and a costly transition to the metaverse, Reuters reported.

Susan Li, Meta’s finance chief, stated on the company’s most recent earnings call that the company’s capital expenditure for the year will be between $30 billion and $33 billion, an estimate that “reflects our ongoing build-out of AI capacity to support ads, Feed, and Reels, as well as an increased investment in capacity for our generative AI initiatives.”

Meta announced that it has so far collaborated with a small group of advertisers on three AI Sandbox tools: text variation, background generation, and image outcropping.

Text variation generates multiple versions of an advertiser’s copy, allowing it to choose which might work best for specific audiences. The background generation tool also makes use of text, creating images from inputs that advertisers can use as the background of their material.

Meta demonstrated how prompts like “NYC street blurred” and “snow mountain blurred abstract high quality” would generate the corresponding background image behind a product in a prepared demo.

Advertisers can use image outcropping to automatically adapt images to the correct size across Meta’s platforms. If an advertiser wants to post on Instagram’s main feed, Stories, and Reels, for example, only one image needs to be adjusted for all three.

Meta’s vice president of monetization, John Hegeman, stated that the new offerings will ultimately help advertisers save time and achieve “better performance” with their ads.

“The aim here, again, is really to quickly test and learn and figure out which parts of these new capabilities are turning out to be most helpful for businesses to achieve their goals,” Hegeman said at the event.

Meta said it will gradually expand access to AI Sandbox to more advertisers starting in July.

The company also announced several AI-powered updates to Meta Advantage, its portfolio of automated tools and products that advertisers can use to enhance their campaigns. Meta has started rolling out an automated performance comparisons report, and in the coming months will begin introducing features that improve audience reach and promote dynamic video ads.

Hegeman said Meta has been investing “tens of billions of dollars” into AI each year, and that the company is using larger and more complex models in its ad systems. He said the advanced models will help drive better results for businesses.

“Overall, the generative AI space is developing incredibly quickly right now and it’s a very exciting time,” he said. “Our unique opportunity is to integrate these features over time into our products.”