Meta’s aggressive investment in artificial intelligence seems to be winning over investors, as the company’s stock jumped in after-hours trading Wednesday following a stellar quarterly earnings report.
Meta, headquartered in Menlo Park, California, surpassed Wall Street’s second-quarter expectations with ease, thanks to a boost in advertising revenue and a growing user base across its core social media platforms. These gains are fueling the company’s significant investments in AI and the recruitment of top-tier talent at strikingly high salaries.
Forrester research director Mike Proulx said Meta is actively advancing in AI and positioning itself for long-term growth, even as antitrust challenges and changing attitudes toward social media threaten its app ecosystem.
Antitrust Ruling Could Force Meta to Spin Off WhatsApp and Instagram
Meta is currently awaiting a ruling in an antitrust case that could potentially require it to divest WhatsApp and Instagram—two platforms it acquired over a decade ago that have since become major players in the social media landscape.
In the April–June quarter, Meta reported earnings of $18.34 billion, or $7.14 per share—a 36% increase from $13.47 billion, or $5.16 per share, during the same period last year.
Meta’s revenue surged 22% to $47.52 billion, up from $39.07 billion.
According to a FactSet survey, analysts had projected earnings of $5.88 per share on $44.81 billion in revenue—figures Meta handily exceeded.
The company’s suite of apps—Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Threads—saw daily active users climb to 3.48 billion, marking a 6% increase from the previous year.
Meta Forecasts Sharp Rise in 2025 Spending as AI Push Intensifies
Meta announced that its expenses are expected to rise as the company pours billions into infrastructure and attracts top-tier talent with high salaries to advance its AI goals. It projects total spending in 2025 to reach between $114 billion and $118 billion, representing a year-over-year increase of 20% to 24%.
In a fresh display of his commitment to AI, CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared a post on Wednesday outlining his vision for “personal superintelligence,” which he believes will help accelerate human progress. While he claimed this level of intelligence is now “within reach,” he didn’t provide specifics on how it would be achieved or clearly define what he means by “superintelligence.”
The concept Zuckerberg refers to aligns with what other tech firms call artificial general intelligence (AGI)—a new focus for the CEO who, in 2021, rebranded the company to emphasize the metaverse and committed billions to developing virtual and augmented reality.
“Our goal at Meta is to make personal superintelligence available to everyone,” Zuckerberg wrote. “We want individuals to be able to shape it according to their own values and needs. This differs from others in the field who envision superintelligence as a centralized force designed to automate all useful work, leaving people to live off its output.”
Zuckerberg Bets on AI Glasses as Gateway to Superintelligence
During a conference call, Zuckerberg said he envisions AI-powered glasses as “the primary way we’ll interface with superintelligence” in the future.
In June, Meta invested $14.3 billion in the AI firm Scale and brought on its CEO, Alexandr Wang, to join a team focused on developing superintelligence. The company also signed a 20-year agreement earlier that month to secure nuclear energy, aiming to support the growing power demands of AI and other computing infrastructure.
At the end of the quarter, Meta had 75,945 employees—a 7% increase from the same period last year.
Following its strong earnings report, Meta’s stock jumped $81.87, or 11.8%, in after-hours trading to $777.08, setting the stage for a potential all-time high when markets open Thursday.
Read the original article on: Tech Xplore
Read more: TikTok Introduces Updated Parental Controls and New Features For Creators