Facebook Marketplace is handing over the tedious first steps of a sale to artificial intelligence. The platform announced a suite of new features Thursday that deploy Meta AI to handle initial buyer inquiries, draft listings, and summarize seller profiles—a move aimed at streamlining the peer-to-peer selling experience.

The centerpiece is an automated reply system for sellers. When a potential buyer asks a common question, like an item's availability, Meta AI can now generate a response using details from the listing. Sellers must enable the feature and can review and edit the AI's draft before it's sent. This directly targets a well-known frustration: sellers wasting time answering repetitive questions that are often already addressed in the post.

Listing an item is also getting an AI assist. By uploading a photo, sellers can have Meta AI create a draft description, populate details, and even propose a price based on comparable local listings.

For buyers, the changes include a new profile summary atop a seller's Marketplace page. This snapshot shows how long someone has been on Facebook, their number of friends, and a condensed history of their Marketplace activity and ratings.

Finally, Marketplace is expanding shipping options. Sellers can now choose to offer shipping directly through the platform, with access to prepaid labels and a straightforward dashboard for order tracking. These tools join existing AI integrations, such as purchase-question prompts for buyers and analytical insights for vehicle listings.

Source: TechCrunch