Since 6 August 2026, three Meta Ads reporting breakdowns (device, hourly, frequency) return empty results for accounts that have not opted in, with no error message at all. At the same time, Meta's AI now rewrites the text baked into your ad creatives, and the average price per ad has risen 12% year over year. Three quiet changes, one shared habit worth adopting: check before you worry, or celebrate too soon.
1. Reports showing zeroes, with no warning
Since 6 August, the device, hourly and frequency breakdowns only return data for ad accounts that have explicitly opted in. For everyone else, the request still succeeds, but the data table comes back empty, no error, no warning. In practice, a device report that showed numbers on 5 August can look like it collapsed on the 6th, even though no campaign actually changed. The option sits under Additional Breakdowns in the Ads Manager reporting view: once enabled, history backfills within about a day.
2. AI now rewrites the text inside your creatives
Since 27 July, the Advantage+ creative tool no longer just generates variants: it rewrites the text baked into your uploaded image, keeping the original font, colours and layout. Eight variants are offered, pre-selected by default. The feature stays on unless you turn it off creative by creative, or set guardrails through the account's Branding section (logo, fonts, colours, tone, restricted words).
3. Prices are rising, but not according to everyone
Meta's Q2 2026 results show $59.4 billion in ad revenue, up 27% year over year, driven by an average price per ad up 12%. Nine million small businesses now use at least one of Meta's AI creative tools. Yet an independent tracker measured the average Facebook CPM in July moving in the exact opposite direction, down 12.7% year over year. Both figures can be true at once: Meta's average is pulled up by its best-performing placements, while lower-monetising impressions are also growing in volume. The practical takeaway stays the same: comparing your own costs over time matters more than a headline average.
The AI view, humans first
Two of these three changes are directly driven by Meta's AI: the text rewrites, and a new ad-ranking system that reasons about the ad and the user together rather than scoring each ad in isolation. Meta credits it with an 8.3% lift in clicks and a 15.7% lift in conversions. But a rewritten headline that contradicts your landing page, or an empty report wrongly read as a campaign collapse, are exactly the kind of mistakes a human eye catches. Deciding what stays under control and what AI can run on its own remains an expert judgment call. AI executes. Expertise decides, and watches over it.
This week's to-do
Compare a device or hourly report from 5 and 6 August: if it is empty when it was not before, enable the option under Additional Breakdowns in Ads Manager. Fill out the Branding section on your Advantage+ accounts to set guardrails for text rewrites, or turn it off creative by creative. Compare your own ad costs over recent weeks rather than the averages making headlines.
At Vistalaro, the day-to-day management of your Meta campaigns, tuning Advantage+, and reading reports closely fall under Vistalaro Reach: we check what the AI changes before it affects your budget or your brand image. The visuals and copy in your ads stay under the creative control of Vistalaro Studio.
Are your Meta campaigns really under control?
Let's check your reports and creatives together, no jargon, and adjust what needs adjusting.
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