Meta is running get-rich-quick ads for its AI tools

A striking development has emerged in artificial intelligence. AI Close AI Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All AI Report Close Report Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Report Tech Close Tech Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

Follow Follow See All Tech Meta is running get-rich-quick ads for its AI tools Manus, integrated into Meta, paid creators to tell you not to get a part-time job. Manus, integrated into Meta, paid creators to tell you not to get a part-time job. by Robert Hart Close Robert Hart AI Reporter Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.

Technical Details

Follow Follow See All by Robert Hart Apr 30, 2026, 4:48 PM UTC Link Share Gift Image: The Verge Robert Hart Close Robert Hart Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by Robert Hart is a London-based reporter at The Verge covering all things AI and a Senior Tarbell Fellow. Previously, he wrote about health, science and tech for Forbes .

Manus, an AI company Meta acquired for $2 billion last year is running ads promising quick, easy money with AI: Find local businesses without websites or with bad websites, have AI build them one, then call them up and sell it to them. As part of the campaign, Manus was paying content creators to build out Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok accounts that promote its AI product as an easy, lucrative gig. (The creators’ TikTok accounts were taken down after The Verge inquired about them.

) Some of these videos would also appear as official ads for Manus, but the posts on the paid creator accounts themselves often obscured their ties to the company. The ads were not subtle. Posted by an account called “Manus AI by Meta,” one video presented Manus’ AI agent as an “Easy side hustle” that “absolutely anybody can do” — one that supposedly “takes less than 10 minutes” and can bring in a “potential $5k a month.

Industry Implications

” The young person in the video says, “There is literally no limit. ” Except, I guess, the number of businesses willing to buy an AI-generated website from a stranger on the internet. The ad did not tag the creator featured in it, but their TikTok account, which has since been removed, was filled almost entirely with Manus content.

Their Instagram account , which is still live, is nearly identical. Neither disclosed any connection to Manus in its bio or posts. Across TikTok and Instagram, I found a network of other accounts posting near-identical Manus content, much of it hyping the website scheme, but also selling vibe-coded apps.

The accounts were strikingly similar.

This advance offers important signals about the future of the sector, and the tech world is watching closely.