The prevailing perception in the technology industry is that it is better for a company to spend too much money than to miss the next big opportunity. However, investors in large technology companies do not see the excessive spending with a good eye. This was shown by her massive stock sale Alphabet When it announced that it would increase its investments more than expected in Artificial Intelligence, but also from the corresponding fall in its share Meta after similar statements.
The Meta He found himself in a more difficult position, as he announced the financial results of the second quarter on the same day as the Microsoft, whose investments in AI generate direct revenue through the service Azure. On the contrary, the Meta It cannot easily turn these investments into profits. Artificial intelligence has already improved the targeting of advertisements, but the margins of further increase in revenue from this source are limited.
However, Mark Zuckerberg He now presented his business plan for AI more clearly, which seems more convincing than he had previously argued for Metaverse.
Meta's strategy is based on three key pillars: personal artificial intelligence assistants, AI agents for business and rental data center infrastructure to other companies. Although none of these sectors still generate significant revenue, Meta has strong bases to develop them. Unlike Metaverse, where it had to create a completely new computing platform – an investment costing over $60 billion without attracting several users – AI is already using its existing services.
Investments, however, are huge. Over the past two years Meta has allocated about $110 billion for making data centers and buying Nvidia processors, while planning capital expenditures of $130 to $145 billion in 2026. As company's financial director Susan Lee said, the aim is the maximum infrastructure development possible for 2026 and 2027.
The positive thing is that Zuckerberg is now starting to explain more clearly how he intends to use these huge investments financially. In the recent investor briefing he argued that the new group of leading researchers and engineers AI would eventually be able to justify its high cost.
Last year, Meta invested $14.3 billion by acquiring a stake in Scale AI and joining the company its founder, Alexandre Wang, who now leads the new Superintelligence Labs. Their aim is to develop the so-called «personal super-intelligence». Despite the withdrawals of executives and internal tensions, the group seems to have already significantly improved some Meta products.
The new Muse Spark model now feeds assistant Meta AI and, according to ZuckerbergThis upgrade was accompanied by a 60% increase in the number of users using the chatbot.
At the same time, the development of the Muse Image and Muse Video, tools aimed mainly at content creators. Although many face with mistrust the mass-produced content by AI, Zuckerberg estimates that an almost unlimited universe of personalized content will be created, which will keep users longer in Meta's applications.
This – dystopian for many but highly profitable – scenario no longer seems unlikely. When Meta used AI to improve proposal algorithms on social networking platforms, the time spent by users in its applications increased by a two-digit rate. In other words, the company has already demonstrated that it can use artificial intelligence to devote more time to content that they did not seek.
If businesses manage to create better advertising through Muse Image and Muse Video, This will be the first substantial example that huge investments in AI are turning into revenue.
The second major opportunity lies in personal digital assistantsAbout a billion people use Meta AI every month via WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Instagram. Zuckerberg, however, wants users not to be restricted to simple conversations, but to assign the assistant specific tasks, such as sending birthday wishes, communicating with friends or other daily actions.
There is already a first example of this use in the field of programmers and technology professionals, who use AI agents through applications such as Telegram to write code, solve technical problems and automate recurring tasks.
Although it remains uncertain whether all these revenue sources will yield, Zuckerberg has presented a clearer and more realistic business plan for artificial intelligence than his vision for Metaverse. It may not have Microsoft's direct economic model through Azure, but for the first time in years Meta's huge spending is more like a calculated investment than a leap of faith.
Source: skai.gr
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