It sounds technical, but the outcome is very concrete for anyone advertising on Facebook and Instagram: better performance, automatically, without changing a thing in your settings. We explain what Andromeda is, what's new, and above all what it means for your campaigns and creatives.
TL;DR
- On October 28, 2026, Meta launched the next generation of Andromeda, its AI system for ad retrieval.
- Andromeda 2.0 uses a mixture-of-experts model and scores more than 1 billion ads per second — roughly 100x more than the 2024 version.
- Meta reports a 2.4% increase in conversions on Facebook since 2025.
- For advertisers, what matters most: more and more varied creatives give the algorithm more to choose from.
A step back: what is Andromeda?
Meta's ad system works in two stages. First comes retrieval: within milliseconds, a few thousand potentially relevant candidates are selected from tens of millions of eligible ads. Then the ranking stage scores those candidates in detail and picks the ad you actually see.
Andromeda powers that first stage. Meta introduced it in late 2024 on NVIDIA's Grace Hopper superchips, making the models 10,000x more complex in one go. The problem: generative AI caused the ad pool to explode, so the 2024 design hit memory and network limits. Time for a rebuild.
What's new in Andromeda 2.0?
The new generation combines three ideas drawn mainly from the world of large language models:
A mixture-of-experts instead of one model
Where a single model once tried to capture all your interests, Andromeda now uses an ensemble of specialized experts. A smart routing system sends each candidate to the experts most relevant at that moment.Near-ranking quality at the retrieval stage
Retrieval now reaches nearly the quality of the far more expensive ranking stage, with about 300x less computation than the 2024 model.Model and hardware as one
Matching, scoring and selection now run on a single GPU server. That cuts network traffic by about 100x and delivers over 1 billion ads per second in production.
Does it actually deliver?
According to Meta, yes. Since 2025, Andromeda has driven a 2.4% increase in conversions on Facebook. Stay critical — Meta gives no exact test setup or baseline — but the direction is clear: the system keeps getting better at matching ads to people, from an ever-larger pool.
What does this mean for you as an advertiser?
Andromeda picks the right ad from a much larger candidate pool, within the same time budget. That directly affects how you should set up your campaigns:
More creatives = more chances
The system can only pick the best match if that match exists. The more varied the ads you supply, the more material Andromeda has to reach the right person.Lean on automation
Andromeda is built specifically to make Meta's automated campaigns (Advantage+) smarter. The more you let the system optimize, the more you benefit.Less micromanaging, more feeding
Your time is better spent on strong, varied creatives than on endlessly fine-tuning targeting. The model does the matching; you supply the material.
The creative bottleneck becomes the difference
If you need 20 different ads instead of 2, producing those creatives becomes your biggest bottleneck. Traditional production is simply too slow and too expensive for that.
That's where user-generated content comes in. With UGC creators you quickly and affordably produce a wide range of authentic videos: different faces, hooks, languages and angles — exactly the variety a system like Andromeda thrives on. On UGC.NL you'll find more than 3,000 verified creators and order ad videos from €59 per video.
Get started with UGC.NL
Give the algorithm what it asks for: find verified creators and order ad videos without a subscription. Find your creator
Frequently asked questions
Andromeda is Meta's machine-learning system for personalized ad retrieval: the first stage of the ad pipeline, where a small set of strong candidates is selected from tens of millions of ads for the ranking stage.
The 2026 version brings an LLM-inspired mixture-of-experts model to the retrieval stage, runs model and hardware as one on a single GPU server, and scores more than a billion ads per second — about 100x more than in 2024.
Meta can pick the right ad from a much larger pool within the same time budget. The gains lie less in your targeting and more in the breadth and quality of your creatives.
Supply more and more varied creatives and let Meta's automation (Advantage+) optimize. UGC videos are a fast, affordable way to produce that variety.