Meta is continuing its shift toward automation in ads. According to Jon Loomer, advertisers are now receiving notifications in Ads Manager that say, “Some detailed targeting options have been combined.” The notice appears in a black bar across Ads Manager and related tools.

The notification follows with a message that reads: “Starting Jan 15, 2026, ad sets using the unavailable options will stop delivering. Please edit your ad sets and saved audiences to remove them or replace them with alternative options.”

The company explains that if advertisers try to select an option that is no longer available, Ads Manager will automatically suggest new ones. Any ad set using removed targeting options will stop delivering and advertisers must update or replace those selections before the specified date.

This change signals Meta’s intent to reduce how much advertisers can manually control interest- and behavior-based targeting. Instead, the company is encouraging brands to rely more on its machine learning systems.

Meta has been consolidating audience options since June, telling advertisers that AI will provide alternatives. The platform says the way audiences are targeted is changing. Instead of selecting dozens of detailed interest categories, Meta wants its AI to identify the right audience automatically.

This is another step toward fully automated campaigns where Meta’s systems handle most of the targeting work. The company claims it can determine the best audience by analyzing signals from an advertiser’s Page, website, and product data.

This aligns with its Advantage+ tools, which already automate creative formatting, bidding, and campaign setup. In June, Meta introduced more Advantage+ features, including tools that generate video ads from static images and add interactive stickers with call-to-action buttons. Earlier in February, the company began testing a unified Advantage+ campaign setup that removed the choice between manual and automated shopping campaigns.

Advertisers who have depended on manual targeting, such as selecting niche interests or specific behaviors, may need to adapt. Meta is positioning AI as the replacement, but that also means handing more control over to the platform’s algorithms.

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