The Friday Cut
Social media marketing news, cut down to what matters. Every Friday from Oscar Owen.
This week
Social Media Marketing News: TikTok and Meta Build AI Agents Into Ad Buying
This week: TikTok and Meta use Advertising Week New York to put AI agents into ad buying, and L’Oréal says almost 20% of its marketing investment is now AI led.
Morning,
I’m Oscar Owen, CEO and Cofounder of Advertain. Each week I round up the social media marketing news that matters, from how AI is changing the platforms to where the world’s biggest brands are putting their money, and what I would do about it.
I have spent more than a decade on YouTube, growing my own channel to 1.6 million subscribers and more than 250 million views. At Advertain we apply that experience to the YouTube and social content we create for global brands, so we feel changes in how ads are bought and made quickly.
This week’s social media marketing news has one clear theme: the platforms are handing more of the campaign to AI agents, and one of the world’s biggest advertisers is already moving budget to match.
In this issue
- 01TikTok brings AI agents into shopping and campaign management
- 02Meta’s assistant learns to build campaigns
- 03L’Oréal puts almost 20% of marketing behind AI
TikTok brings AI agents into shopping and campaign management
TikTok used Advertising Week New York to launch a set of AI tools for advertisers (TikTok Newsroom, 5 Oct 2026). Shopping Assistant is “a conversational AI agent that guides users through their shopping journey”, Buy Direct lets people buy directly from a brand without leaving the app, and Agentic Leads uses AI conversations to qualify prospects. Smart+ Creative Selection brings brand assets, AI generated creative and creator content together, and the TikTok for Business MCP now connects to AI assistants including Claude and Perplexity.
TikTok says advertisers using its MCP grew by more than 200% between July and September, which is its own internal figure. A new TikTok Ad Network, reaching nearly 400,000 apps, is launching for US advertisers first (Marketing Dive).
When the platforms automate the buying, creative becomes the main lever a brand still controls.
Put your brand assets and your creator content into the same test and judge them on the same outcome. If your team already uses an AI assistant for reporting, connect it to one TikTok account first, with clear spending limits, before rolling it out.
Meta’s assistant learns to build campaigns
Meta is giving its AI business assistant more memory and context, so its recommendations draw on past results, seasonality and the goals an advertiser has set (Social Media Today via Yahoo, 6 Oct 2026). In testing, advertisers can ask it to plan and build campaigns, generate images and copy, update targeting and change budgets (MediaPost, 8 Oct 2026). Advantage+ creative can now turn existing static assets into video.
Meta says advertisers using the assistant see “5% more conversions at the same cost per conversion”. That is Meta’s own number, not an independent result.
Write your brand guidelines and creative rules down in a form a machine can follow before you switch any of this on. Then test it against a control campaign so you measure the 5% claim on your own account.
L’Oréal puts almost 20% of marketing behind AI
Asmita Dubey, chief digital and marketing officer of L’Oréal Group, told Fortune that “almost 20% of L’Oréal’s marketing investments are now AI led” (Fortune, 6 Oct 2026). L’Oréal has tested advertising in Google’s AI Overviews, and its 20 most senior executives each made an ad using AI from start to finish.
Dubey’s reasoning is simple: “The reason we are talking about AI is because more than a billion consumers are on it.”
The useful lesson here is not the percentage, it is the method. Set a defined share of budget for AI led work, fix your product data and ad account structure first, and get your leadership team to make something with the tools themselves.
The rest of this week’s social media marketing news
- Social is the fastest growing ad channel. WARC Media forecasts global social media ad spend up 21.3% to $394.6bn this year (MediaBrief). For how to split that money, see our guide to paid vs organic social media.
- LinkedIn is filtering low quality AI content. LinkedIn says its classifiers now cover all posts shown beyond a user’s own network, with 94% precision at detecting low quality AI posts (Social Media Today).
- Promotions are outspending media. A survey of 250 UK consumer goods marketing leaders for Les Binet and Dom Boyd found brands spend around twice as much on price promotions as on paid media, and 75% cannot say what share of their promotions is profitable (Marketing Week).
Forecast growth in global ad spend by channel, 2026
What to do next week
| Story | What changed | Your move |
|---|---|---|
| TikTok AI tools | Shopping and lead agents, Smart+ Creative Selection, and MCP use up 200% (TikTok data) | Test brand and creator content side by side in one campaign |
| Meta business assistant | Agentic campaign building in test, Meta claims 5% more conversions | Document brand rules, then run it against a control campaign |
| L’Oréal and AI | Almost 20% of marketing investment now AI led | Ring fence a test budget and fix your product data first |
Right hand column is my recommendation, not data.
P.S.If there is a topic you would like covered, tell me through our contact page, and subscribe to receive The Friday Cut in your inbox every Friday.
That’s the cut.
About the author
Oscar Owen
CEO and Cofounder, Advertain
Oscar Owen is CEO and Cofounder of Advertain, the YouTube and social content agency for global brands. He leads creative strategy across YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, and has built an audience of more than 2.6 million followers across his own channels, earning YouTube’s Gold Play Button along the way.
In front of the camera and behind it.
Oscar has spent more than a decade on camera building his own audience. Today he brings that same instinct to every brand Advertain works with, from the idea and the script to the edit.Frequently asked questions
What did TikTok announce at Advertising Week New York 2026?
AI tools for advertisers including Shopping Assistant, Buy Direct, Agentic Leads, Smart+ Creative Selection, wider MCP connections to AI assistants, and a TikTok Ad Network for US advertisers (TikTok Newsroom).
What can the Meta AI business assistant do?
It gives recommendations using past results, seasonality and goals, and in testing it can plan and build campaigns, create images and copy, and change targeting and budgets through conversation (MediaPost).
How fast is social media ad spend growing in 2026?
WARC Media forecasts global social media ad spend will grow 21.3% to $394.6bn in 2026, the fastest of any major channel (MediaBrief).
Sources and methodology
Stories were chosen from news published in the seven days to 9 October 2026. Platform claims and vendor figures are labelled as such. Opinions are my own. Photos: Oscar Owen, Advertain.
- TikTok Newsroom: AI powered updates for advertisers (5 Oct 2026)
- Marketing Dive: TikTok broadens agentic AI play (5 Oct 2026)
- Social Media Today via Yahoo: Meta introduces new AI tools (6 Oct 2026)
- MediaPost: Meta unveils enhanced AI business assistant (8 Oct 2026)
- Fortune: L’Oréal is rethinking its marketing engine (6 Oct 2026)
- MediaBrief: WARC global ad spend forecast (8 Oct 2026)
- Social Media Today: LinkedIn on the battle against AI slop (8 Oct 2026)
- Marketing Week: Binet and Boyd on price promotions (7 Oct 2026)
