Meta Says It’s ‘Making a Lot of Progress’ With AI as Spending Grows

Meta Platforms (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in Wednesday’s earnings call that more spending on artificial intelligence (AI) products and infrastructure “is maybe not what investors want to hear in the near term,” but that he feels it’s necessary for the tech giant to seize opportunities in the industry.

The earnings call followed an estimate-topping third quarter from Meta, with net income coming in more than $2 billion higher than expected. Advertising revenue, the bulk of Meta’s revenue, beat projections as the company has said its AI efforts have had a positive impact on the effectiveness of its ads.

Meta also lifted the lower range of its projected capital expenditures to $38 billion to $40 billion, from $37 billion to $40 billion previously, as the tech giant and many of its peers ramp up investments in the development of AI products.

AI Spending To Grow in 2025

While Zuckerberg and CFO Susan Li didn’t offer numeric projections for Meta’s expenditures in 2025, Li said they expect spending will grow next year, including a “significant acceleration in infrastructure expense growth” to support Meta’s AI products.

Zuckerberg said Meta is “making a lot of progress” with the products it has released so far, like the Meta AI chatbot and AI features for its Ray-Ban smart glasses. Zuckerberg also said he expects there will be further opportunities to use advances in the technology to “accelerate our core business” and provide a “strong” return on investment (ROI) in the coming years.

Meta’s New Llama 4 AI Model Set for Release Early Next Year

Zuckerberg said Meta AI is still on track to be the most-used AI assistant on the market by the end of the year, noting it crossed the 500 million monthly active user (MAU) threshold in the quarter.

Zuckerberg also said Llama 4, the newest generation of Meta’s large language model (LLM), is “well into its development,” with the smaller models of Llama 4 set for launch “sometime early next year.” The upgraded model will have better reasoning ability, faster response times, and other new capabilities, the Meta CEO said.

Meta shares slipped 3.3% in extended trading following the earnings call. They were up 67% for the year through Wednesday’s close.