CEO Mark Zuckerberg attended Meta’s earnings call on Wednesday and didn’t promise breakthrough AI models to silence skeptics.
Instead, he suggested something more prudent: betting on momentum.
“We expect our first model to be good,” Zuckerberg said in his opening remarks. “But more importantly, it demonstrates the rapid trajectory we’re on. We then look forward to steadily pushing the frontier as we continue to release new models throughout the year.”
In June, Meta launched a new AI initiative, Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL), headed by former Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang. As Wall Street looked for signs that this massive and costly AI reset was working, Zuckerberg asked another question. It was patience and belief that a steady drumbeat of releases in 2026 is more important than one big announcement.
“While some may want more from the AI strategy articulated on the call, there was an underlying sense of confidence and clearly a lot of new things on the way,” Barclays analyst Ross Sandler wrote in a note to clients.
Mr. Zuckerberg could not yet share details of the company’s AI strategy during the conference call, but said the company would roll out early models and products over the coming months.
“I think my answers to a lot of the questions on this particular conference call may be somewhat unsatisfactory because we’re in this interesting period where we’re reshaping our AI efforts, and six months later, I’m happy with the progress we’re making,” he said.
Still, some analysts pressed the CEO. When JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth asked Zuckerberg for details on MSL’s progress, Zuckerberg said he was “very happy with the quality of the team,” but had nothing else to add.
“I think the first set we put out will be less about a moment in time and more about showing the trajectory we’re on,” Zuckerberg said.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s comment is “no substance”
“There’s nothing substantive about Mr. Zuckerberg’s comments that would move our analysis one way or another,” Brian Mulberry, an analyst at Zacks Investment Management, told Business Insider.
“We want to see the real bottom line benefits brought about by AI, and the meta still seems a long way from that reality,” Mulberry said..
IDC research director Roger Behari Lal told Business Insider that Zuckerberg’s comments about the company’s future AI models and its “trajectory” show the company is ambitious, but the lack of specific information means the company’s goals “remain ambitious.”
Advertising allows Meta to spend more on AI
Meta’s financial reports show that its AI efforts are already improving its advertising business. The company said improvements in how ads are ranked and displayed increased clicks on Facebook by 3.5% and conversions on Instagram by more than 1% in the final quarter of 2025.
Meta’s revenue rose 24% to $59.9 billion in the last three months of 2025, and it generated free cash flow of $43.6 billion in 2025, despite spending heavily on AI infrastructure. The number of ad impressions is up 18% since this time last year, and the amount advertisers are paying for each ad is up 6%.
This combination explains why Meta can afford to continue spending on AI, even as Mr. Zuckerberg urges investors to wait for big breakthroughs.
Given Meta’s recent track record, Meta’s patient approach comes with some risk. In August, Business Insider reported that the company was aiming to release the next version of its Llama AI model by the end of the year, but that didn’t happen.
Llama’s previous release in April disappointed developers as it lagged behind the most important features in coding and inference, the very AI race that Meta wants to catch up to.
Meta’s new model, called Mango, will focus on images and video, while another model called Avocado will excel at coding, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Some analysts said Mr. Zuckerberg’s restraint may simply reflect the early stages of Meta’s AI reset.
“It will take some time for this new team to train the models,” Mandeep Singh, global head of technology research at Bloomberg Intelligence, told Business Insider.
To regain ground, he expects the meta to narrow its focus and specialize in specific areas, rather than “trying to beat everyone everywhere at once.”
Singh said Mehta’s strong advertising business led to the big jump.
“At this rate of growth, you have a significant cushion in terms of deploying AI over time,” he said.
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