Meta Platforms has announced it will begin testing advertisements on its social media platform Threads, starting with selected brands in the US and Japan, as the platform reaches a milestone of over 300 million monthly active users.

The test, which commenced on Friday, will display image advertisements within users' home feeds, positioned between regular content posts for a small percentage of users, according to Meta's blog post.

Instagram head Adam Mosseri emphasised the company's careful approach to the rollout. "We know there will be plenty of feedback about how we should approach ads, and we are making sure they feel like Threads posts you'd find relevant and interesting," he said.

The platform, launched in July 2023 as a competitor to Elon Musk's X (formerly Twitter), will allow businesses to extend their existing Meta advertising campaigns to Threads. The company plans to implement an inventory filter for advertisements, powered by artificial intelligence, enabling advertisers to control the sensitivity level of content their ads appear alongside.

Despite the platform's growing user base, Meta's chief financial officer Susan Li previously stated that Threads is not expected to be "a meaningful driver of 2025 revenue." This comes as Meta chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg announced plans to invest up to $65 billion this year to expand the company's AI infrastructure, positioning itself against competitors OpenAI and Google.

The company has confirmed that users will have control over ad topics and will be able to report advertisements they find inappropriate. Meta will closely monitor the initial testing phase before considering a broader rollout of the advertising programme.

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