There is a lot of interest for investors about the 2026 meta.
What are the best artificial intelligence (AI) stocks to buy in early 2026? A few strong candidates immediately come to mind. rear “Meta Platform” (meta 2.95%) Last week’s Q4 update was great and definitely on the shortlist, probably deserving of the top spot. Here are seven reasons why Meta is probably the best AI stock to buy right now.
1. AI will transform Meta’s core advertising business
Meta remains a giant in digital advertising. Advertising revenue rose 24% year over year to $58.1 billion in the fourth quarter. And AI is transforming the company’s core advertising business, driving revenue and profits.
In Q4, Meta changed the architecture of the GEM model used for ad ranking and doubled the number of GPUs used to train the AI model. The results were impressive: ad clicks on Facebook increased by 3.5% and ad conversions on Instagram increased by more than 1%. The company expects further improvement in performance going forward.
Image source: Getty Images.
2. Agent coding greatly improves Meta productivity
Speed of software development is critical to Meta’s growth story. Thanks to agent coding (the use of agent AI to create, test, and debug software with minimal human intervention), the company’s output per engineer has increased by 30% since the beginning of 2025. Meta’s productivity gains are even more pronounced for power users, whose AI coding tools have seen a staggering 80% year-over-year increase in production.
There’s even better news for Meta shareholders. “We expect this growth to accelerate into the second half of the year,” CFO Susan Lee said on the fourth-quarter earnings call. [of 2026]. ”
3. Smart glasses could become the biggest device since smartphones
Sales of Meta’s AI-powered smart glasses more than tripled in 2025. This growth may be just the tip of the iceberg.
“I think we’re in a similar period to when smartphones came out, and it was clearly only a matter of time before all these flip phones became smartphones,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a fourth-quarter update. He noted that billions of people around the world currently wear glasses, adding: “It’s hard to imagine a world in a few years where most of the glasses people are wearing aren’t AI glasses.”
4. Meta’s personal superintelligence is poised to be a game changer
When Zuckerberg announced Meta’s efforts to develop AI superintelligence last year, some people may have rolled their eyes. But the company’s vision of building a personal superintelligence is poised to be a game changer.
“This will be a pivotal year in achieving personal superintelligence,” Zuckerberg promised during the company’s fourth-quarter earnings conference. He said Meta has already begun to realize the potential of AI to understand users’ history, interests, content and relationships.
Today’s changes
(-2.95%) $-21.81
current price
$716.50
Key data points
Market capitalization
$1.8 trillion
daily range
$713.59 – $732.17
52 week range
$479.80 – $796.25
volume
24M
average volume
19M
gross profit
82.00%
dividend yield
0.29%
5. Metacomputing should deliver good results
AI infrastructure is a major constraint for companies developing AI systems. That’s why Meta founded Meta Compute a few weeks ago. The goal of this new division is to invest in creating the custom silicon and energy sources needed for AI.
Importantly, Meta has designed the system to support all types of chips. The Andromeda advertising search engine is currently Nvidia (NVDA 0.72%) or AMD (AMD 6.13%) It runs on GPUs and Meta’s in-house developed MTIA accelerators. Meta Compute should bring significant benefits over time by reducing Meta’s dependence on third-party chips and lowering energy costs.
6. Agent AI for business is already a meta winner
We’ve already mentioned how agent AI in coding helps Meta be more productive. The technology also allows the company to increase B2B revenue.
Meta’s business AI on its WhatsApp messaging platform currently supports more than 1 million conversations each week between customers and businesses in Mexico and the Philippines. The company plans to expand the use of these AI agents in other markets in 2026 as they further enhance their capabilities.
7. Reality Labs’ losses should decline
Meta’s profit would have been 24% higher if Reality Labs, Meta’s augmented reality and virtual reality-focused division, hadn’t posted a $6 billion loss in the third quarter. Investors frustrated by Reality Labs’ continued outflow of money received some good news in Meta’s fourth quarter update. The division’s losses in 2026 will likely be similar to those in 2025, but Mehta expects earnings to improve going forward.
Is this just a promise? i don’t think so. Meta is currently focusing most of its Reality Labs investments on AI glasses and wearables. I expect these investments to yield significant returns over the long term.
