Thought Leadership
Thanks to Facebook and Instagram, the Meta is raking in billions. With these resources, founder Mark Zuckerberg is investing heavily in artificial intelligence.
With the help of its billions in profits from online advertising, the Facebook Group wants to take a leading position in artificial intelligence. Meta’s vision is to make “personal superintelligence available to everyone”, said founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg after the presentation of the latest quarterly figures. It is very likely that “the world will look quite different in a few years”.
Meta describes AI that surpasses human intelligence in every respect as superintelligence. The company has seen the first signs of systems with artificial intelligence that can improve themselves, said Zuckerberg. This brings superintelligence within reach – even if its development will still take time.
Longer use thanks to AI recommendations
Meta has been relying on artificial intelligence for years and uses it, among other things, to suggest posts to users on the Group’s online platforms. In the past quarter alone, they spent five percent more time on Facebook and six percent more time on Instagram thanks to better recommendations, said Zuckerberg.
For some time now, Zuckerberg has had big ambitions to overtake rivals such as the ChatGPT developer OpenAI as well as Google and Elon Musk’s company xAI in the field of artificial intelligence. To this end, it is also trying to poach AI experts from the competition on a large scale. According to media reports, Meta is promising them several hundred million dollars in compensation spread over several years – and in one case even up to one billion dollars.
Billions in – billions out
The money for the AI offensive comes from the booming business with advertisements on the meta platforms. In the past quarter, revenue rose by 22% year-on-year to 47.5 billion dollars (41.36 billion euros). Profit jumped by 36 percent to around 18.34 billion dollars. Every day, 3.48 billion users access at least one of the Group’s apps, which also include WhatsApp and Threads.
Meta expects to invest at least USD 66 billion this year, primarily in AI data centers. The upper limit remains unchanged at 72 billion dollars. Three months ago, Meta set the lower end of the range at 64 billion dollars.
Zuckerberg continues to incur high losses in the Reality Labs division, where virtual worlds and computer glasses are developed. He once again expressed his conviction that glasses with cameras and speakers will be a perfect AI device for the future – because the software can see what the user is looking at. Reality Labs posted an operating loss of 4.5 billion dollars in the last quarter.
Expectations exceeded
Meta forecast sales of between 47.5 billion and 50.5 billion dollars for the current quarter. The market had been expecting a forecast of just over 46 billion dollars. The figures for the previous quarter also exceeded analysts’ expectations. Meta shares rose by almost twelve percent in after-hours trading.
dpa
