Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg will give a keynote speech at the Meta Connect Annual event on September 25, 2024 at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California.
Manuel Orbegozo | Reuters
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg plans to continue his company's artificial intelligence until next year, as his rival tech giants are doing the same thing.
Zuckerberg told analysts Wednesday in a second-quarter revenue call that the pace of AI's rapid progress has conveyed much to Meta's recent business decisions, including a June $14.3 billion investment in startup scale AI that solves data as part of a wave of high-scoring AI strategy.
Rapid advances in AI ensure that Meta has “absolute, most elite talented teams” with access to the resources they need from the “major computing fleet,” Zuckerberg spoke about the AI super intelligence team he gathered for the company this summer. Whatever these top AI researchers are, he said, could be implemented across family apps from Facebook, Instagram and other companies.
“When we film technology, we are good at driving it through all our apps and advertising systems,” Zuckerberg said. “No other company is better than us who take something and have it in front of billions of people.”
However, these AI efforts are at a cost.
Meta on Wednesday said it expects total costs to range from $114 billion and $118 billion in 2025, up from $113 billion from the low end of previous outlook. Meta also still plans next year, but the company said the AI initiative will “provide a 2026 cost growth rate, exceeding the 2025 increase in costs.”
Other tech giants also spend heavy money on AI projects and talent.
alphabet Last week, it said it was raising capital expenditures in 2025 to $85 billion. This is $10 billion higher than previous forecasts. Microsoft On Wednesday, he said first quarter capital expenditures would be $30 billion ahead of the $24.23 billion analyst expectations.
For now, investors are OK with Meta's large AI investments, with the company's shares rising nearly 12% in after-hours trading on Wednesday. Meta helps report strong second quarter revenues beating the top and bottom while providing third quarter sales guidance that has surpassed Wall Street expectations.
Zuckerberg also said that AI “has achieved greater efficiency and profits across the ad system,” and that it is likely to reassure investors who are worried that Meta's large AI spending has some immediate results.
The company's Reality Labs unit continues to bleed money, posting an operating loss of $4.53 billion in the second quarter, but the surprising hit of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses appears to have subdued investors' complaints for the time being.
“We continue to think that glasses will essentially be the ideal form factor for AI because we can have AI see what you see all day long, hear what you hear and talk to you,” Zuckerberg said. “Whether it's the broad holographic vision of the Orion, or a small display that could be suitable for displaying some kind of information, getting a display there will unleash a lot of value that can interact with your AI system throughout the day.”
clock: I like meta as inventory, don't love it, I like Google.
