India’s video story is no longer defined by metros. Today, daily engagement spans cities, towns, and villages alike, signalling a new phase of truly nationwide digital behaviour. New insights from Meta-commissioned studies by IPSOS show that video has become the default mode of content consumption across the country, with Reels emerging as India’s primary screen for discovery, culture, creator engagement and commerce.

This shift is happening at a remarkable scale: at least 97% of surveyed users in India now watch videos on our platforms daily, reflecting the country’s rapid move toward mobile-first, video-first behaviour. Importantly, this is no longer an urban-only trend. Daily video engagement is now nearly identical across urban India (98%) and rural India (94%), signalling that India’s video-first transformation is being shaped as much by Bharat as it is by metros.

Surveying 4000+ respondents across 23 cities including Metros, Tier 2/3 and Rural India, the study highlights that we have emerged as the primary daily video platform across audiences, with 97% daily usage among Gen Z, 97% among women, and 98% among NCCS A audiences – reinforcing our leadership across both mass and premium consumer segments. 

At the centre of this shift is Reels, which has rapidly evolved into the defining short-form video surface for the next generation of consumers.

Increasingly, Reels is becoming India’s personal and primary screen – a place where people discover content, creators, communities and brands throughout the day. Among Gen Z audiences, 89% use Reels daily, making it a primary destination for content, culture and self-expression. Daily Reels engagement is similarly strong among women (85%) and NCCS A audiences (88%), reflecting how short-form video, led by Reels, is increasingly and democratically shaping how India discovers trends, creators and brands. 

“India’s video boom isn’t urban-led anymore — it’s nationwide, cutting across GenZ, women and premium audiences. Creators, culture and commerce are converging on Reels in ways we haven’t seen before. For brands, this isn’t just a content play — it’s a always on Content-to-Commerce play. Reels are where discovery starts, trust is built, and purchase decisions are made.” – Saugato Bhowmik, Director, CPG & D2C, Automotive, (India) at Meta

Gen Z and Bharat Audiences Driving Next Wave of Digital Growth

One of the strongest signals emerging from the insights is the role of key demographic groups in shaping how India consumes and discovers content online.

Reels has become a key discovery engine for these audiences, deeply embedded in everyday entertainment and exploration habits. Among younger users, 84% of Gen Z consumers discover new products and brands through our platforms, underscoring the role of short-form video in influencing preferences, trends, and purchase journeys. Similarly, 73% of rural users discover new products and brands through our platforms, highlighting how creator-led content is resonating far beyond metropolitan markets.

The findings signal that the next chapter of India’s internet economy will increasingly be shaped beyond metros – by mobile-first users consuming culturally rooted, creator-driven video content.

Lifestyle, Comedy, Fitness and Sports Are Emerging as India’s Most Engaged Reels Genres

The study also reveals that strong engagement around content categories is rooted in everyday interests and aspirations.

Beauty and makeup (52%), Fashion and trends (52%), Lifestyle (42%), Fitness & Wellness (42%), Comedy & Humour (39%), Sports (38%), and Travel (37%) have emerged among the most engaged genres on Reels, highlighting how audiences are gravitating toward culturally relevant and highly relatable content experiences.

Creators are playing a central role in driving this engagement. Reels delivers nearly 60% higher creator engagement than other surveyed short-form video platforms, reinforcing the growing influence of creator-led storytelling in shaping conversations, trends and brand discovery. Importantly, the influence of the ecosystem itself is evolving. 

They are no longer just content producers – they are trusted entertainment and discovery engines. Rural India, Gen Z, Women, and NCCS A audiences actively engage with creators on our platforms, making creators a key driver of culture, trends and brand discovery.

Reels Is Becoming a Key Driver of Discovery and Decisions

Beyond entertainment and engagement, the studies reveal Reels’ growing influence across the consumer purchase journey.

Reels influence the consumer journey end-to-end, driving 81% product discovery, 66% consideration, and 47% purchase influence among users, positioning short-form video as a critical driver of modern commerce behaviour.

The platform’s influence is particularly strong across high-intent categories including e-commerce, auto and financial services.

Even in financial services, there is a pronounced effect in Bharat markets. 76% of rural financial services users engage with our platforms daily, underscoring how financial inclusion and product discovery are increasingly unfolding through mobile-first video experiences.

Women are also emerging as a powerful audience within this category, with 54% of women financial product owners engaging with creators on our platforms daily – one of the highest among all audience cohorts studied.

The auto category reflects a similarly full-funnel pattern. Our platform leads across the entire automotive purchase journey – from Discovery (82%) to Consideration (68%) and Purchase (50%) – reinforcing how car-buying decisions are increasingly being shaped through short-form video and creator-led influence and impact.

Key Stats from the IPSOS Reports: 

• India’s Video-First Reality

• • • 97% watch video on Meta at least once a day – video isn’t a trend, it’s the default.   
    • This isn’t a metro story: 98% urban and 94% rural daily usage shows video has gone truly pan-India.
    • Meta leads daily video usage across India’s most sought-after audiences – Gen Z (97%), Women (97%), and NCCS A (98%).

• Reels: The Next-Gen Screen

• • • Reels is where Gen Z lives – 89% use it daily, making it the defining surface for youth culture and content.
    • For Women (85%) and premium audiences (NCCS A, 88%), Reels is now the primary short-form video screen.

• Genres & Creators

• • • Beauty & makeup, Lifestyle, Fitness, Comedy, and Sports are driving outsized engagement on Reels – proof that culturally rooted content wins.
    • Reels drive ~60% higher creator engagement than other short-form video platforms, making it the go-to surface for creator-led storytelling.

• From Discovery to Purchase

• • 81% stronger product discovery on Reels – it’s where consumers first meet brands, build an interest that further leads to review and commerce.
  • 47% influence on purchase decisions – short-form video is now a commerce engine, higher than other surveyed short-form video platforms and TV
  • Reels leads the full path-to-purchase across Gen Z, Women, NCCS A and categories including Online Shopping, Auto, and Financial Services.

The post Reels Is Shaping India’s Video-First Future Across Gen Z, Women & Bharat appeared first on Meta Newsroom.

Today, leading tech companies announced the results of a major joint operation with law enforcement to disrupt criminal scam networks in Southeast Asia. The operation — the first of its kind to include companies from across the industry in the fight to protect people from online scammers — yielded significant enforcement actions by directly tying online activity to real-world criminals.

Results of the operation include: 

• Digital Disruptions: Meta disabled more than 1.4 million accounts, pages, and groups from Facebook and Instagram. Microsoft suspended approximately 20,000 fraudulent accounts linked to scam networks as part of this coordinated effort. 
• Real-World Action: Law enforcement has arrested 63 potential criminals connected to scam centers thus far. 
• Financial Seizures: Coinbase froze more than $3 million in cryptocurrency assets tied to criminal networks. 
• Intelligence Gains: The intelligence-sharing led to the identification of many potentially new scam center locations and networks, which were referred to law enforcement.
• Connectivity Disabled: Starlink continued to build on its consumer integrity efforts, which have terminated connectivity for thousands of Starlink kits that were attributed to unlawful use.

Working Across Industry to Find and Disrupt Criminal Scam Networks

Beginning on May 18, the US Department of Justice’s Scam Center Strike Force — led by the US Attorney for District of Columbia, Jeanine Pirro — brought together Meta, Microsoft, Coinbase, Starlink, and other companies alongside the FBI, Secret Service, and law enforcement partners in the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Thailand. Together, we shared information, deepened partnerships, and strengthened action to identify and target criminal syndicates behind online scams.

Throughout the week, partners gathered in Washington, DC to share actionable insights that helped connect the dots between disparate pieces of information across platforms. The collective effort of these tech companies allowed the operation to target and disrupt criminal scammers at nearly every point in the fraud attack chain. These criminal syndicates exploit millions of people worldwide — through romance scams, investment fraud, and forced labor in scam compounds — making coordinated disruption essential to protecting communities online.

“Protecting people around the world from scams is one our highest priorities. The joint operation announced today — which included the removal of over a million accounts, the freezing of assets, and more than 60 arrests — demonstrates the power of partnerships to combat scammers. We’re proud to partner with industry and DOJ, FBI, Royal Thai Police, and other law enforcement agencies in taking this global fight directly to these Asia-based scam centers at their source.” — Chris Sonderby, VP and Deputy General Counsel, Meta

“Operations like this show what’s possible when technology companies and law enforcement work side by side. Scam networks operate across platforms and borders, and Microsoft remains committed to working with partners to combine visibility into scam infrastructure with real-world action, disrupting criminal networks at scale and holding those behind them accountable.” — Steven Masada, Global Head of Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit

“Blockchain technology is one of the most powerful tools we have in the fight against financial crime. Unlike traditional financial systems, the transparent and immutable nature of transaction data means bad actors can’t hide – every transaction leaves a trail. That transparency is exactly what allowed us to work with law enforcement to trace, freeze, and disrupt these criminal networks.” — Leah Bressack, VP, Coinbase (Updated on June 3, 2026 at 2:30PM PT to reflect accurate attribution.)

“As with any consumer product, the risk of abuse is always present and is not something that Starlink contends with in isolation. Starlink is committed to closing the digital divide while maintaining zero tolerance for abuse. We proactively detect and disable terminals involved in illegal activity and our Acceptable Use Policy strictly prohibits fraud and criminal exploitation. Through collaboration with law enforcement and technology companies, we advance global anti-scam efforts and ensure Starlink remains a force for good.” — Lauren Dreyer, Vice President of Starlink Business Operations at SpaceX

Taking the Fight Against Scammers to the Source

Online scammers constantly adapt their tactics, targeting multiple apps and platforms simultaneously to evade detection. Addressing this challenge requires coordinated, collective action across sectors — from technology platforms to internet providers and financial institutions, to governments and law enforcement agencies worldwide.

“This marks our third joint operation with Meta and law enforcement partners across sectors, and the results demonstrate tangible progress in intercepting transnational online scam syndicates. Transnational online fraud cannot be solved by any single agency or country acting alone, which is why strong collaboration and timely information sharing remain essential to dismantling these networks and protecting the public.” — Police Lieutenant General Jirabhop Bhuridej, Royal Thai Police

This model of industry and law enforcement working together demonstrates clear results, and the participating companies remain committed to continuing this important collaboration to protect people online.

The post Leading Tech Companies and Law Enforcement Join Forces to Disrupt Criminal Scam Networks in Southeast Asia appeared first on Meta Newsroom.

Today, we’re introducing Meta Business Agent – AI that lets every business show up for every customer as if they had an infinite team behind them. Business Agent can be set up in minutes or plugged directly into your existing enterprise infrastructure so you can 10X or 100X output.

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More than one million businesses are already using a Meta Business Agent on WhatsApp and Messenger to respond to customers around the clock. And because a billion people already connect with businesses on WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram every day, a Business Agent can deliver more relevant, personalized experiences from the very first interaction.

We’re now expanding our Business Agent to businesses of all sizes globally, so you can have yours up and running within minutes, responding in your customers’ local languages using your tone. Your Business Agent can:

• Answer questions specific to your business
• Make product recommendations from a business catalog
• Book appointments and qualify incoming leads
• Let you decide when a team member steps in to provide support
• Close sales

We’re also expanding Business Agent to Instagram. Businesses can activate their Business Agent here, and getting started is free. In the coming months, businesses will access the agent through paid subscription offerings, with options for businesses of every size.

An AI Agent That Works for You

Because the Meta Business Agent responds to customers, it doubles as a partner that can deliver a morning briefing to catch you up on chats you missed overnight and provide insights on your threads. We’re starting with a select number of businesses on the WhatsApp Business app, Instagram Pro, Messenger, and Meta Business Suite, and in the future we’ll expand its capabilities to help fully run all your daily operations — like conducting market research, surfacing product insights, connecting with the tools to manage your calendar and providing competitive intelligence. You can join the waitlist here.

Personalizing Customer Experiences

We’re also introducing the Meta Business Agent Platform: a new agentic platform that gives businesses the infrastructure to build, customize, and deploy their Business Agent at scale. It lets businesses connect to a growing suite of hundreds of systems like Shopify, Zendesk, and Shopee giving Business Agents the ability to take action on behalf of the business. The platform provides larger businesses with enterprise-grade controls, guardrails, and measurement built in so they can define rules and offer personalized experiences, starting within the messaging apps their customers already use.

For businesses using WhatsApp, the Meta Business Agent Platform works alongside our Business Platform, and we support Messenger and Instagram as well.

Helping Businesses Get Discovered by New Customers

We’re also making it simpler for people to discover businesses powered by a Meta Business Agent directly on WhatsApp. Soon, people will be able to find businesses by typing its name in the Search bar, or by sharing its phone number or contact card in chats with friends and family. This way, when more customers reach out they get a quick, helpful response.

We’re excited to hear how the Meta Business Agent can give businesses the support they need to succeed — no matter their size.

The post Be There for Every Customer With Meta Business Agent appeared first on Meta Newsroom.