The race to harness the power of generative artificial intelligence (AI) is well underway, but investors are being cautioned not to expect quick returns. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivered this message during a conference call Wednesday to discuss the company's first-quarter earnings report. The recent integration of ChatGPT's competitors into his platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp has focused a lot of attention on how generative AI could lead to Meta's economic benefits.
Meta remains highly profitable, with net income of over $12 billion on revenue of $36.5 billion in the last quarter alone, but future revenue growth is expected to slow. At the same time, the company is allocating unprecedented resources to its AI development and Metaverse.
“Historically, investing in the development of these new scale experiences within apps has proven to be a profitable long-term venture for us and our investors,” Zuckerberg said on the earnings call. , similar to previous developments such as Stories and Reels, said at the earnings conference. “Again, early indicators are promising, but establishing state-of-the-art AI will require a larger effort than previous app enhancements, and will likely span several years.”
Zuckerberg stressed that the meta-AI assistant has been “tested” by “tens of millions of people” since it recently became widely available. But the real test will be whether MetaAI becomes a staple product for users and whether there is a huge demand for AI assistants within social media applications.
Looking ahead, Meta envisions various ways to monetize the Assistant, which is currently available for free.
“There are real business implications here, including expanding business messaging, integrating advertising and paid content into AI interactions, and offering options to pay for access to larger AI models and enhanced computing power. There are a lot of opportunities to develop this,” Zuckerberg explained. “Furthermore, AI is already enhancing app engagement, which naturally leads to increased ad exposure and refinement of ad delivery to deliver greater value.”
Zuckerberg suggested that the quality of ads could be improved in the near future by increasing the use of Meta AI, as the company analyzes users' interactions with the Assistant to learn more about their purchasing preferences. He indicated that he plans to gain insight. This approach sets Meta on a different path than his OpenAI, which has so far favored a subscription-based model and rapidly focused his solutions on enterprise rather than advertising.
Beyond his work on generative AI, Zuckerberg expressed optimism about the success of Meta's smart glasses in partnership with Ray-Ban. During the conference call, he noted that many styles and colors of the device are currently sold out, and emphasized that the device's multimodal AI capabilities have recently become widely available.
“I used to believe that only the advent of full holographic displays would make AR glasses a mainstream product,” Zuckerberg recalled. “However, it became clear that there was also a huge demand for fashionable AI glasses without a display.”
