Meta spouští Muse Spark 1.1, svůj dosud nejsilnější model pro agentní a kódovací úlohy, a zpřístupňuje jeho API v public preview. Cílí tím na OpenAI a Anthropic.
Three months after unveiling its first artificial intelligence model under the leadership of AI chief Alexandr Wang, Meta is rolling out a major update as it attempts to compete with OpenAI and Anthropic in critical areas of the market.
Muse Spark 1.1, which Meta introduced on Thursday, represents its "strongest model for agentic and coding work yet," Wang said in an interview with CNBC. The initial Muse Spark model released in April was only available to "select partners" who could access the technology via a "private API preview."
Meta is making the new model's API available through a developer portal as part of a public preview, where users will be able to sign up and see instructions for integration. A Meta spokesperson said some early partners can already access the API, and new users "will be able to add themselves to a waitlist and be added from there over time." For now, Meta said it's limiting API access to its own properties rather than making it available on third-party platforms like the popular OpenRouter marketplace.
"This is going to be served on top of the computer infrastructure that we've built," Wang said.
It's Meta's second notable rollout for the Muse family this week. On Tuesday, Meta released Muse Image, originally code-named Mango, a model for creating images, as the company seeks to attract creators and advertisers to its offerings.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is coming under pressure from Wall Street to show a return on the company's massive and growing investment in AI infrastructure and development. While it's spending at the rate of its hyperscaler peers, Meta doesn't have a cloud infrastructure business (though it plans to start one), and it's failed to keep up with OpenAI, Anthropic and Google in developing popular models and AI applications.
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Wang characterized pricing of the Muse Spark update as "very aggressive and attractive" compared with similar offerings from labs like Anthropic and OpenAI. He said every new API account will start with $20 in free credits. From there, the company will charge $1.25 per million tokens in input, and $4.25 per million tokens of output, he said.
"The goal is to really have attractive pricing that scales with immense consumption usage," Wang said.
He said Muse Spark 1.1 outperformed rival models in certain tasks involving the ability to interact with various third-party coding products and services.
Wang's Meta Superintelligence Labs, or MSL, trained Muse Spark 1.1 to excel in coding-related tasks because that ultimately improves the capabilities of AI agents that can autonomously perform multiple tasks like a fleet of human interns, he said.
"You kind of have to build coding capabilities as part of that in service of overall agentic capabilities," Wang said.
The tech industry's excitement about AI agents took off in the first half of 2026, in part due to the sudden popularity of OpenClaw, which developers could use to manage AI models that power supercharged digital assistants. Wang said Meta trained Muse Spark 1.1 "to be able to work well with all of the most popular harnesses that developers use today, and we felt that was the best approach for this model given our goal to maximize adoption."
Although Meta's previous AI strategy emphasized releasing its earlier Llama family of models to the open-source community, the company is now focusing on selling access to proprietary AI models.
Wang said that Meta is still "committed to open source" and that his MSL unit has a "variant of Muse Spark that is in development that we do intend to open source." He declined to say when the company would release it.
Wang added that he's been "dog-fooding" the latest Muse Spark model, and is excited about the technology's ability to be used as tool for improving personal health via tasks like searching the web, reading academic papers and accessing personal health-related data.
"It's one of these use cases that I think really encapsulates the needs of these agentic systems," Wang said of his AI and health experiments.
Wang said Meta is currently training a more powerful AI model, code-named Watermelon, but didn't say when it would be released. Muse Spark's code name was Avocado.
Meta pozastavila trénink AI po úniku dat z interního programu, která se podle CTO Andrewa Boswortha dostala „na místo, kam neměla“. Firma incident vyšetřuje a nevidí známky zlého úmyslu.
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Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth shared new details about a data leak from its AI training program. Bloomberg/Getty Images Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth shed new light on the data leak that made the company pause its unpopular Model Capability Initiative.
In an interview with The Atlantic CEO Nicholas Thompson, released on Wednesday, Bosworth spoke about why Meta paused the AI training program that involved tracking employee keystrokes. The interview was filmed in late June.
Bosworth said that data generated by the training program was "quite secure," with only a small number of people having access, but it had been erroneously moved by one of Meta's researchers.
"One of the researchers who was working downstream with that data—and there was no breach here— but had put it in a place it wasn't supposed to go," the executive told Thompson.
The employee data, in a transformed state, had "landed someplace that it shouldn't have landed internally," he said, adding that Meta did not suspect foul play.
The company was "locking the whole thing down" until it could get to the bottom of this incident, Bosworth said.
The Model Capability Initiative was introduced in April. It involved installing software on the majority of Meta's US employees to track their keystrokes and mouse movements to train its AI models. The program — and Meta's instruction that employees couldn't opt out of it — drew major backlash from its workforce.
Bosworth himself said, during an internal meeting, that employee morale in the company was "probably one of the worst it's ever been" in Meta's two-decade history.
However, the program was paused in June after a leak made sensitive employee data accessible to the entire company, according to screenshots seen by Business Insider.
"We have carefully designed this program with privacy safeguards, and while we have no indication at this time that any data was improperly accessed by Meta employees, we're pausing it while we investigate," a Meta spokesperson told Business Insider in June.
In the interview, Bosworth also shared another reason the program had not gone to plan. It was generating a lot of the same data, he said, when ideally, the company should have gotten more varied data that could be used to train its AI.
"Variance is far more important than a high volume of the same thing that gets collapsed into one example, basically," he said to Thompson.
"So that was why, a couple of weeks after we initially launched it, we added expanded opt-outs for people who didn't want to do it," he said. "A pause, infinite pause. Whenever you don't want to have it, just press pause."
Representatives for Meta declined to provide further comment in response to a query from Business Insider.
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Meta spustila nové cloudové podnikání a bude pronajímat přebytečný výpočetní výkon externím zákazníkům. To může naznačovat, že masivní investice do AI infrastruktury začínají přinášet i okamžité příjmy. Meta letos plánuje kapitálové výdaje ve výši 125 až 145 miliard dolarů.
The "Magnificent Seven" plan to spend more than $700 billion on artificial intelligence capital expenditures this year, a big step up from the $400 billion or so the group spent in 2025.
In 2025, whenever hyperscalers announced plans to increase their AI-related capex, their stocks surged. But now, that spending has become a major point of contention in the market, primarily because investors are worried that the returns on these massive investments may not live up to the hype.
In particular, investors are worried that hyperscalers may overbuild AI infrastructure. Meta Platforms (META 1.91%) CEO Mark Zuckerberg may have just given us a big hint about how valid those concerns might be.
Image source: Getty Images.
Meta's new cloud infrastructure plan could be a tell Recently, Meta announced it is launching a new cloud business that will lease its excess compute capacity to external customers. Shares popped on the news, as it could lead to immediate revenue from the company's new data center builds, which investors are already clamoring to see, given the size of Meta's capex.
Meta has guided for capital expenditures of $125 billion to $145 billion this year, most of which will cover "additional data center costs to support future-year capacity."
The announcement is big news in the AI narrative because back in the third quarter of 2025, Zuckerberg implied that his company wouldn't become a supplier of compute unless it overbuilt AI infrastructure:
Now, I mean, it's of course possible to overshoot that, right? And if we do, I mean, this is what I mentioned in my comments, then we see that there's just a lot of demand for other new things that we build internally, externally. Like, almost every week, people come to us from outside the company asking us to stand up an API service or asking if we have different compute that they could get from us. And we haven't done that yet, but obviously, if you got to a point where you overbuilt, you could have that as an option.
Now, it's not a total surprise, as Zuckerberg has been hinting that Meta might begin leasing compute, and the stock has struggled this year. Even after the rally on the cloud announcement, the stock was still down about 9.5% year to date as of July 6.
Does this signal a massive overbuild? As with everything else in AI, it's hard to provide a definitive answer on whether we are at the beginning of a massive overbuild in AI infrastructure. After all, consider that Space Exploration Technologies recently raised nearly $86 billion in its massive IPO, partly on the thesis that it will deploy an enormous constellation of data center satellites in orbit.
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Zuckerberg also does not necessarily view the current situation as an outright infrastructure overbuild; rather, it is that the company has gotten ahead of schedule in building what it will require. On the company's third-quarter 2025 earnings call, he also said that the worst-case scenario is that Meta has built some of its AI data center capacity a few years in advance. In this scenario, while those assets would experience some loss and depreciation, the company will eventually utilize the compute.
Additionally, rental prices for most graphics processing units (GPUs), even older models, appear to be on the rise, suggesting that demand for compute remains strong.
All that said, investors should continue to weigh the evidence carefully on both sides of the debate, and understand that the narrative could break in either direction. Furthermore, the hyperscalers have not yet spent the full $700 billion that they've allocated to capital expenditures this year. They could easily revise their AI capex guidelines should conditions require it.
If there is a pullback in spending, while investors in individual "Magnificent Seven" stocks may feel relieved, the market could view it as a major red flag for the entire AI trade.
Perhaps this scenario has been somewhat priced into these stocks, given the group's struggles thus far this year, but it's a risk investors need to be cognizant of, and Zuckerberg may have given the market a glimpse of what's to come.
The logo of Meta at the Meta Lab in Los Angeles, California, U.S., May 20, 2026. REUTERS/Daniel Cole/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
SummaryCompaniesAlberta pitched cheap gas and cooler temperatures as key advantages1 gigawatt facility is Meta's 33rd globallyData center will be built in Sturgeon County in central AlbertaCALGARY, July 8 (Reuters) - Tech giant Meta announced Wednesday it will build a massive data center in central Alberta, the company's first in Canada, as it rapidly builds out computing capacity to support the global AI boom.
The 1-gigawatt data center will be located in Sturgeon County and represents a total investment of C$13 billion, or $9.17 billion, Meta said.
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Meta has doubled down on AI, pledging hundreds of billions of dollars to build large AI data centers in the U.S. The Alberta announcement represents the company's 33rd data center globally.
Executives made the announcement in Calgary alongside Premier Danielle Smith and other Alberta government officials, who have spent several years courting Silicon Valley tech giants with the aim of spurring a large-scale investment in the oil-and-gas province.
Meta, like other tech giants, is facing rapidly expanding power needs due to the growth of AI, and Alberta is rich in natural gas which sells at a significant discount to the U.S. benchmark.
The province's cold climate also makes cooling the massive super-computers and related data center infrastructure more cost-efficient.
The 20 existing small- to mid-scale data centers in Alberta already pull from the province's energy grid, which is 60% powered by natural gas. The provincial government is giving new proponents the option to build their own power sources to avoid limits on power capacity.
Meta said Wednesday it will fully fund new generation and grid infrastructure for its Alberta data center, which will consume about as much electricity as 800,000 homes.
The company has partnered with Alberta-based Pembina Pipeline, which announced last week it will go ahead with its Greenlight Electricity Centre, a new natural gas-fired power-generation facility in Sturgeon County which will be in service in late 2030 and with which Meta has a long-term tolling agreement.
The project will require approximately 150 million cubic feet per day of natural gas, according to Pembina, helping to create demand for Western Canadian natural gas producers.
Canada's government laid out an AI strategy last month that suggested new data center growth would benefit from the country's clean electricity grid, which is largely powered by renewables and low-emission power sources.
But the vast majority of data centers currently in the planning stages in Canada are located in Alberta, where a reliance on natural gas means the emissions intensity of the province's electricity grid is almost five times the national average.
Reporting by Amanda Stephenson in Calgary Editing by Nick Zieminski
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Meta zavádí u AI brýlí ochranu, která vypne kameru při manipulaci s LED indikátorem záznamu. Současně ale dál rozšiřuje funkce, jež vyžadují více osobních dat a vyvolávají obavy o soukromí.
Meta’s AI glasses have a growing reputation as a creepy technology. The company hopes to change that opinion by announcing an update that will disable the camera if the LED light that indicates the glasses are recording has been tampered with.
The move is seemingly a concession to consumer sentiment that the glasses aren’t just fun, fashionable accessories, happily promoted by Kylie Jenner, but have serious implications for consumer privacy: They can be abused as surveillance devices.
Yet, even as Meta touts the new safeguard this week, the company is also pushing products and features that ask users to surrender more of their privacy to the company.
Whether that’s training its AI on your images, enabling AI features using your personal content unless you opt out, or exploring ways to continuously record or use biometric facial recognition, Meta’s vision of the future seems to always depend on collecting more of your personal data.
In its blog post about the new camera safety feature, the company pats itself on the back, noting that “no other kind of camera has done this and we’re proud to lead the industry effort.” However, Meta also admits that the move was necessary because some people had been using tape to cover the LED light, which had already forced Meta to adapt its tech to disable recording when the LED is blocked.
Determined, those same AI glasses creeps would then use “sophisticated efforts to modify or destroy the capture LED,” Meta’s announcement explains.
In other words, Meta is confirming that some people who use AI glasses have hidden agendas — namely a desire to record situations or people (often women) without their consent.
Despite this, the company is reportedly testing a prototype of AI glasses that would “continuously collect audio while taking photos every few seconds,” sources recently told Financial Times.
Meta’s blog post about the glasses feature attempts to assuage people’s fears about the devices’ privacy by answering questions like “who can see the photos and videos I take on my glasses?” Meta answers by promising, “You, and only you — unless you choose to share them.” Yet, Meta’s privacy policy has explained that any image you share with Meta AI can be used to train its AI.
Image Credits:Meta (screenshot of privacy policy on July 8, 2026) All the while, the company is facing multiple investigations and lawsuits over Meta AI glasses privacy violations. One lawsuit comes after Meta notably canceled a contract with an outsourced tech firm after some of its Kenyan workers alleged they had to view graphic content, like sex, nudity, and people using the toilet, while training Meta’s AI using people’s Meta AI glasses’ videos.
These are hardly Meta’s first scrapes with privacy violations or safety measures, either.
Arguably, Meta’s reputation on privacy has been tainted for years after numerous leaks and lost lawsuits about its alleged lack of child safety measures and desire for growth at all costs. There are books by whistleblowers documenting its alleged abuses, not to mention previous large-scale privacy disasters, like the Cambridge Analytica data scandal and others.
After the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal, Meta now insists on its Privacy Progress Update page, “Since 2019, we’ve invested significantly in people, products, and technology to continue to evolve our rigorous privacy program.”
Still, the company plows forward with what many people would consider privacy-violating ideas. Case in point: On the same day it announced the Meta glasses’ new safeguard, it shared that Meta AI can now use anyone’s public Instagram photos to make AI images, unless you opt out.
It also built features to use Meta AI on images in your Camera Roll you’ve never shared and implemented such poor privacy controls in its Meta AI app, leading users to essentially dox themselves by revealing their embarrassing searches.
This is the same company that Apple wouldn’t partner with due to privacy concerns, that records its employees’ keystrokes to train its AI, and that plans to sell targeted ads based on data in your AI chats.
So, while an LED safeguard on AI glasses might be a necessary feature, consumers clearly still have many reasons to remain distrustful of how social media will use their images and data, especially in its broader AI plans.
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Sarah has worked as a reporter for TechCrunch since August 2011. She joined the company after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to her work as a reporter, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software.
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Meta Platforms oznámila nový cloudový byznys a začne pronajímat část přebytečného výpočetního výkonu zákazníkům. Akcie po zprávě 1. července vzrostly o 9 %.
Meta Platforms (META 1.76%) started the month with a bang. Its shares climbed 9% on July 1 after the company revealed that it will begin leasing some of its surplus computing power to customers. The launch of this new cloud computing business was in line with earlier comments from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who said on Meta's first-quarter earnings conference call that the social media giant could sell some of its capacity at a premium if it feels that it has overbuilt for its in-house needs.
According to Bloomberg, Meta is still debating whether to offer AI models that run on its infrastructure, or simply sell direct access to computing power. Meta has developed its own large language models (LLMs), although they're primarily for internal use. Specifically, the company deploys these models to optimize its content recommendation engine, helping keep users on its sites longer, and to help advertisers better target and convert customers.
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Earlier this week, it introduced its first image generation model: Muse Image, which was developed by its Superintelligence Lab, and which will work in conjunction with its Muse Spark text model. Muse Image will help power Meta's advertiser-focused image generation tools to help marketers more easily create and adjust ad campaigns. Muse Image will be available to consumers for free on a limited basis, and Meta will also offer a monthly subscription.
Offering both cloud computing capacity and its AI models would help Meta compete with Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet -- the world's three biggest cloud computing providers -- and provide the company with another revenue source. Most importantly, though, the announcement should help ease investors' concerns about the company's high spending on AI infrastructure. Meta has announced plans to spend up to $145 billion on capital expenditures (capex) this year, largely tied to its AI efforts. Creating a cloud computing arm would allow it to allocate and shift compute capacity between itself and customers, giving it more flexibility.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Is the stock a buy? In my view, Meta is one of the most undervalued mega-cap tech stocks in the market today. It trades at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of just 19 times 2026 analyst estimates and below 17 times 2027 estimates/ Meanwhile, in Q1, it grew its revenue by 33% year over year.
Meta has been one of the best companies at applying AI to its core business to drive growth, and its new cloud computing unit should help allay investors' fears about its capex plans. Given its valuation and growth, and the removal of that overhang, I would be a buyer of the stock at current levels.
Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Meta Platforms v červnu klesla o 11 % kvůli obavám z vysokých výdajů na AI, možného vydání nových akcií a absence cloudového byznysu. Firma letos plánuje kapitálové výdaje ve výši 125 až 145 miliard USD.
Shares of Meta Platforms (META +2.59%) were heading lower last month as a slew of concerns mounted for the social media giant. Among those were layoffs, overspending on AI and capital expenditures, and a lack of direction in artificial intelligence, as the company has struggled to develop a meaningful revenue stream beyond advertising.
The stock also fell on a report that it would sell new shares to fund its AI ambitions. By the end of the month, shares had given up 11%, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
As you can see from the chart below, the stock fell steadily throughout the month.
META data by YCharts
Why is Meta sliding? Meta is the only one of the four hyperscalers, which includes Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet, to not have its own cloud computing business, though a report broke in July that said it would launch one.
The lack of cloud computing business makes its plans to spend a $125 billion-$145 billion on capital expenditures this year especially risky, and the stock paid the price for it last month.
On June 5, the stock fell 6% after Financial Times reported that the company had been considering raising tens of billions of dollars in a stock offering to support its AI-related spending. The sell-off is understandable as Meta is burning approximately $20 billion a year on Reality Labs, its division that supports its AI projects, and investors have yet to see a return on that investment.
As evidence of the ongoing backlash against social media, the U.K. banned social media for children under 16, which could add to calls for other companies to do the same.
Meanwhile, other reports indicated that morale was low at the company following several rounds of layoffs and after CTO Andrew Bosworth told Wired that its AI reorganization was "atrocious." The head of product for "AI for Work" also said she was leaving the company shortly after being named to the position.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
What's next for Meta The stock popped on July 1 after Bloomberg reported that the company was planning to launch its own cloud computing business, news that came weeks after CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the idea was "definitely on the table."
Following the stock's sell-off in recent months, Meta stock looks cheap, trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of just around 24 after adjusting for a one-time tax gain in the first quarter.
That looks like a great price to pay for a company that just grew revenue by 33%, but Meta will have to convince investors it's spending its capex dollars wisely in order to unlock the stock's potential.
Jeremy Bowman has positions in Amazon and Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Meta Platforms v úterý rostla po zlepšení doporučení analytiků; Erste Group zvýšila doporučení na Buy a BNP Paribas potvrdila Outperform před výsledky za druhé čtvrtletí.
The gains came amid improving analyst sentiment and growing investor optimism over Meta’s long-term artificial intelligence monetization strategy.
Erste Group upgraded the stock to Buy from Hold, while BNP Paribas reiterated its Outperform rating ahead of second-quarter earnings.
BNP Paribas said Meta remains well-positioned to sustain revenue growth despite rising AI infrastructure spending and sees a potential future cloud offering as an additional long-term growth opportunity.
Analyst Outlook Ahead Of EarningsBNP Paribas reiterated its Outperform rating and $955 price forecast on Meta ahead of the company’s expected earnings release in the last week of July.
Senior analyst Nick Jones said investors are likely to focus on Meta’s capital spending plans, AI product development, a potential cloud offering and subscription adoption trends.
The analyst expects second-quarter revenue growth to slow from prior quarters because of temporary factors but believes the company can maintain long-term top-line momentum.
Revenue And Earnings ExpectationsBNP Paribas said Meta’s valuation suggests investors remain cautious about earnings growth, the scale of AI investments, returns on those investments, competition in artificial intelligence and the broader macroeconomic environment.
Jones said investors are expecting second-quarter revenue growth of 27% to 29% year over year, compared with the consensus estimate of 27%. He also expects GAAP diluted earnings per share above $7.40, versus the Street consensus of $7.19.
For the third quarter, BNP Paribas believes investors are looking for revenue guidance of $62 billion to $64 billion, compared with the consensus estimate of $63.2 billion.
AI Spending Remains In FocusThe analyst also expects Meta to raise its 2026 capital expenditure outlook by at least $10 billion from its current $125 billion to $145 billion range as higher component costs continue to inflate AI infrastructure spending.
Despite slowing user growth as Meta’s platforms approach saturation, BNP Paribas said engagement remains a key strength. The firm estimates Meta accounts for more than 40% of time spent across major social media platforms, nearly double that of its next-largest competitor. That, it said, should support continued growth in revenue per daily active person.
BNP Paribas expects Meta to fund its elevated AI investments through stronger monetization of AI features, advertising market share gains, subscription revenue and the optionality of a future cloud offering.
Meta Platforms Technical AnalysisMeta is trading about 5.4% above its 20-day simple moving average and slightly above its 50-day moving average. However, the stock remains below both its 100-day and 200-day moving averages, suggesting the longer-term trend has yet to turn positive.
Momentum indicators have improved. The moving average convergence divergence (MACD) remains above its signal line, indicating selling pressure has eased.
Even so, the broader trend remains cautious. The 20-day moving average is still below the 50-day average, while the 50-day average remains below the 200-day average following a death cross that formed in December 2025.
Technical analysts are watching resistance near $643, close to the 200-day moving average. Initial support sits around $595 near the 50-day moving average.
Earnings Remain The Next Major CatalystAttention is now shifting to Meta’s expected second-quarter earnings report, estimated for July 29, 2026, which could shape the stock’s next move.
Wall Street expects earnings per share of $7.18, up from $7.14 a year earlier. Revenue is projected to increase to $60.22 billion from $47.52 billion.
The stock trades at roughly 21.8 times earnings and carries a consensus Buy rating. The average analyst price forecast stands at $826.88. Recent analyst actions include:
Erste Group upgraded the stock to Buy on Tuesday. Wells Fargo maintained an Overweight rating and raised its price forecast to $767 on July 2. RBC Capital Markets reiterated its Outperform rating with an $810 price forecast on June 1. Meta Platforms Price ActionMETA Stock Price Activity: Meta Platforms shares were up 1.42% at $608.83 at the time of publication on Tuesday, according to Benzinga Pro data.
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Meta představila nový model Muse Image pro generování obrázků a chce jím přilákat tvůrce i inzerenty. Model bude zdarma v aplikaci a na webu Meta AI, ve WhatsApp přímých zprávách a v Instagram Stories, ale pokročilé funkce budou součástí placených předplatných. Později v roce má být dostupný také na Facebooku a Messengeru i v dalších částech Instagramu a WhatsApp.
Meta on Tuesday released Muse Image, a new artificial intelligence model for creating images as the company seeks to attract creators and advertisers to its offerings.
Originally codenamed Mango, the AI technology marks the second major release from Meta Superintelligence Labs led by Alexandr Wang, who oversaw the April unveiling of the Muse Spark large language model that succeeded the company's previous Llama family of models.
Muse Image will be available for consumers to access for free via the Meta AI app and site, WhatsApp direct messages and Instagram Stories. Power users and creators must sign up for one of Meta's new monthly subscription plans that debuted in May to create many AI-generated images and access certain features. If users hit their free limit, they can purchase a Meta One subscription or wait until their limit resets, the company said.
Muse Image will also power advertiser-specific, image-generation tools as part of Meta's AI-powered Advantage Plus service that lets brands more easily develop ad creative for their marketing campaigns and automate certain tasks. Meta said it's been working with businesses and advertisers as part of debuting Muse Image.
"Muse Image brings native reasoning to the creative process to adjust elements, swap styles, and create variations based on the advertiser's creative, resulting in high-quality, on-brand ad variations with fewer iterations," the company said in a blog post for businesses. "In the coming weeks, advertisers and agencies can expect to see image variants powered by Muse Image."
Read more CNBC tech newsChinese lidar maker with Nvidia ties accused of being cyber risk for U.S.China's Alibaba bans Anthropic AI for employees after 'distillation attack' accusationSpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell to donate stock to Trump AccountsMicrosoft cuts 4,800 jobs, as Xbox unit downsizes and plans to spin off four gaming studiosThe new image-generation model and efforts to monetize it show how Meta is trying to expand from its core business of online advertising and generate new revenue sources tied to its hefty spending on AI-related infrastructure.
OpenAI and Alphabet got a head start over Meta in offering similar image-generation models, with Google's Nano Banana becoming a hit with consumers when it was released last fall.
Meta also revealed internal benchmark tests showing Muse Image trailing OpenAI's latest GPT Image 2 model but beating the Nano Banana 2 model in tasks like editing both single and multiple images.
The social media giant has previously used third-party AI models like Midjourney and Black Forest Labs to power various image and video generation features within its Meta AI app and site. The company said it plans to use its new AI model to reduce reliance on similar third-party technologies.
Meta also plans to release an AI video generation model dubbed Muse Video at a later date, adding in a technical blog that it "offers competitive performance in prompt adherence, visual fidelity, and temporal consistency."
Muse Image will be available on Facebook and Messenger as well as more areas within the Instagram and WhatsApp services later in the year.
Meta uzavřela s CoreWeave smlouvu na výpočetní kapacitu za 21 miliard USD do roku 2032, ale zároveň buduje vlastní cloud „Meta Compute“, který může být přímou konkurencí.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META | META Price Prediction) and CoreWeave (NASDAQ: CRWV) just closed the books on their Q1 2026 reports with sharply divergent financial profiles. Meta printed $56.31 billion in revenue while raising capex guidance to $125 to $145 billion. CoreWeave grew sales 111.7% to $2.078 billion but posted a $740 million net loss.
One Prints Cash. The Other Prints Debt. Meta is a self-funding machine. Advertising revenue climbed 33% to $55.02 billion, ad impressions rose 19%, and pricing per ad jumped 12%. That funded $19 billion in Q1 capex without touching the balance sheet. Mark Zuckerberg framed the buildout around “personal superintelligence” and the debut model from Meta Superintelligence Labs.
CoreWeave’s story is different. CEO Michael Intrator called it “the strongest bookings quarter in CoreWeave’s history,” with backlog approaching $99.4 billion and active power crossing 1 GW. Yet capex hit $7.695 billion, roughly 370% of quarterly revenue, and interest expense doubled to $536 million. Total liabilities now sit at $50.81 billion against $55.57 billion in assets.
Q1 2026 Driver Meta CoreWeave Operating Margin ~41% -6.9% Free Cash Flow $12.39B -$4.71B Funding Source Internal FCF Debt and equity issuance The $21 Billion Handshake Hides a Structural Problem Meta signed a $21 billion multi-year compute partnership with CoreWeave through 2032, which explains why CoreWeave’s backlog looks so fat. The catch is what Bloomberg reported about “Meta Compute,” an initiative to turn Meta’s in-house AI infrastructure into a public cloud that rents out excess bare-metal GPU capacity. Meta’s largest customer relationship with CoreWeave could morph into direct competition inside the same contract window.
That matters because CoreWeave’s pricing power rests on GPU scarcity. If Meta redirects even a slice of its $145 billion capital expenditure cycle into rentable capacity, the neocloud scarcity premium erodes. Insider selling ahead of the earnings report and the securities class action alleging concealed data center delays aren’t helping.
What I’m Watching Into Q2 Meta reports Q2 on July 29, and I want to see whether ad pricing holds while capex accelerates. For CoreWeave, the question is margin trajectory. Operating margin has flipped from +3.8% in Q3 2025 to -6.9% in Q1 2026 even as revenue exploded. That’s the wrong direction.
Why I’d Rather Own Meta Here For me, Meta is the cleaner bet. It trades at a P/E near 21 with 57 buy ratings and a consensus target of $828.17 against a $600.29 quote. CoreWeave analysts still see upside to $142.29, but the setup only works if AI GPU pricing stays tight. If you believe Meta Compute lands as advertised, that assumption cracks. On the data, Meta’s self-funded balance sheet looks better positioned than CoreWeave’s debt-financed buildout if GPU pricing softens.
Mark Zuckerberg přiznal, že vývoj AI agentů za poslední čtyři měsíce „neurychlil“ podle očekávání. Meta zároveň po květnovém propouštění asi 8 000 lidí stále čeká na přínosy nové struktury.
At an internal Meta town hall on July 2, 2026, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees that AI agent development over the prior four months “hasn’t really accelerated in the way that we expected,” per a recording heard by Reuters. He added that the company’s reorganization was not as “clean” as planned and that its bets on the new structure “haven’t come to fruition yet,” though he expects meaningful benefits within three to six months.
The admission came six weeks after Zuckerberg’s May layoff memo declared “AI is the most consequential technology of our lifetimes” and that “the companies that lead the way will define the next generation.”
The $145 billion Contradiction Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction) has committed to $125 billion to $145 billion in 2026 capex, more than double its $72.215 billion 2025 outlay. In April, Meta inked a $21 billion expanded AI infrastructure deal with CoreWeave through 2032, on top of a 6-gigawatt AMD GPU partnership signed in February. And yet, last week it was reported Meta will rent out capacity much like SpaceX (Nasdaq: SPCX). Bulls have cheered the announcement, noting it gives Meta Platforms more flexibility and could raise substantial revenue in the year ahead.
Bears point ot the fact Meta has enough compute its not able to effectively use it on its products. That could show the company is reaching the limits of AI producing strong ROIC when applied to products from Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. In the past Meta has managed to continue driving engagement across its product suite (and advertising solutions) through increased AI usage.
Shares trade near $584, down roughly 11.5% year to date and about 18% over the past 12 months, underperforming megacap peers. If AI “hasn’t really accelerated,” what is $145 billion buying?
Who Got Cut, Who Got Protected Meta notified roughly 8,000 employees in May 2026, about 10% of its then-80,000 person workforce. Per CNBC reporting from May 20, 2026, cuts hit integrity teams, cybersecurity, content design, and Reality Labs hardest, while AI infrastructure, foundation models, and AI monetization teams were protected. Another 7,000 employees were redirected into newly created AI-focused teams, and 6,000 planned hires were cancelled.
US workers received 16 weeks severance plus two additional weeks per year of tenure, with health insurance extended 18 months. Zuckerberg told staff: “Success isn’t a given.” CFO Susan Li added on the Q1 call that executives “don’t really know what the optimal size of the company will be in the future.”
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The Human Cost One Meta policy employee told Wired that morale is low because the US workforce feels it is “being used to train the AI models that will replace them.” Meta’s overall employee rating on Blind has fallen 25% from its Q2 2024 peak, with culture ratings down 39%. Median total compensation slipped by nearly $30,000.
The Counterargument Meta’s Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang took to X to defend Meta’s efforts and layer on additional context to Zuckerberg’s quote:
First, Mark was clearly talking about the industry’s progress on agentic capabilities on the whole.
But, while we’re on the topic: Our next Muse Spark update is coming soon. Big improvements in coding and agentic capabilities to be more competitive with other leading models.… https://t.co/uTjx8sZM2A
— Alexandr Wang (@alexandr_wang) July 3, 2026
Wang also claimed that while Meta has lagged rivals, its upcoming model (code-named Watermelon) will equal 5.5 from OpenAI. If Meta can catch up to other ‘frontier labs’ that have made major investments into areas like coding and agentic capabilities, it would go a long way to soothing negative investor sentiment.
An Industry Pattern Meta joins a broader industry trend. Layoffs.fyi counts roughly 110,000 layoffs at 137 tech companies in 2026 so far, after about 125,000 cuts in all of 2025. Goldman Sachs pegs AI-driven layoffs at more than 16,000 payroll cuts per month industry-wide. Cisco cut roughly 4,000 employees the same week as Meta, and Microsoft offered buyouts to about 7% of its US workforce in April.
Zuckerberg’s remark appears to be the first time a major CEO has publicly conceded the acceleration isn’t happening on schedule. Reality Labs alone lost $4.03 billion in Q1 2026. The core ad engine grew revenue 33.08% year over year, but expenses climbed 35%.
If the three-to-six-month window Zuckerberg cited slips, what happens to remaining employees, signed capex commitments, and a stock that has already given back a fifth of its value?
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Meta uvedla, že čtyři americké státy požadují v srpnovém soudním řízení až 1,4 bilionu USD na pokutách kvůli obvinění, že Facebook a Instagram měly návykové funkce pro mladé uživatele. Firma tvrdí, že částka není podložena důkazy.
People walk behind a logo of Meta Platforms company, during a conference in Mumbai, India, September 20, 2023. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
SummaryCompaniesPenalties were calculated based on state laws in Colorado, California, Kentucky and New JerseyMeta says the number is not supported by evidenceThe company faces thousands of claims over addictive featuresJuly 6 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms (META.O), opens new tab said in a court filing on Monday that four states were seeking $1.4 trillion in penalties over accusations the company designed its Facebook and Instagram platforms to addict young users and misled the public about their safety.
Meta put forward the figure in its response to the attorneys general's filings on how penalties should be calculated if the states prevailed at trial.
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The number, which has not previously been disclosed and is close to Meta’s market capitalization of around $1.5 trillion, comes ahead of an August trial in Oakland, California over the claims brought by California, Colorado, Kentucky and New Jersey against the company.
Meta said the amount was unsupported by the evidence.
"A sanction of that size has no analog in the history of consumer protection enforcement," the company said in the filing.
Representatives for the attorneys general did not immediately respond to requests for comment after the filing.
TALLYING DAMAGESThe states' filings are sealed, but at a court hearing in June they said they were calculating the penalties by multiplying the number of violations by fine amounts set by state law. The number of violations is based on the estimated number of teens and young users affected by Meta's actions, the states said.
Twenty-nine states have sued Meta in federal court, most of them alleging the company violated the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act by collecting data from children without proper parental consent. The trial in August before U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers will address all claims brought under that law, plus the four states’ allegations that the company violated their state laws protecting consumers by misleading them about the safety of their platforms.
Meta has denied the allegations, saying the attorneys general have no evidence it misled consumers about its platforms' alleged addictiveness because "social media addiction" is not an established psychiatric condition, and therefore statements that its platforms were not addictive could not be false.
A further 14 states have brought claims under their own laws, which will be heard at a separate trial in February.
Last month, Rogers rejected Meta’s bid to cancel the trial, saying there remained factual disputes over whether its social media platforms were addictive, whether Meta falsely denied it designed them that way, and whether it "partially" directed the platforms at children.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta said after Rogers' ruling that Meta was putting profits ahead of children's safety and breaking consumer protection laws, promising to hold the company "fully accountable" for its role in the teen mental health crisis.
Meta, Snapchat and parent Snap Inc. (SNAP.N), opens new tab, YouTube and parent Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL.O), opens new tab, and TikTok and parent ByteDance are facing thousands of lawsuits in both federal and state court over claims they knowingly designed their platforms to have features that addict children and teens, fueling a mental health crisis.
States across the country have sued the companies, some as part of the case before Rogers and others in their home state courts. New Mexico was the first to go to trial, and a jury awarded the state $375 million in March after finding the company had misled New Mexico consumers.
A judge in New Mexico is currently weighing the second portion of the state’s case, which seeks additional damages and a court order directing the company to make changes to its Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp platforms.
Reporting by Diana Novak Jones; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi and Kate Mayberry
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Diana reports on product liability, litigation, mass torts and the plaintiffs' bar. She previously worked at Law360 and the Chicago Sun-Times.
Meta Platforms zvažuje vlastní cloudový byznys a prodej přebytečné výpočetní kapacity, což má zmírnit obavy z vysokých výdajů na infrastrukturu. Minulý kvartál jí tržby vzrostly o 33 % na 56,3 miliardy USD.
Meta Platforms (META 4.80%) has been one of the best companies at applying artificial intelligence (AI) to its core business to drive growth. However, the stock has nonetheless struggled amid investor concerns about its high spending on data center infrastructure.
The company helped allay investors' fears when it was announced that the social media giant planned to sell excess computing power and launch its own cloud business. The move would put it into the same business as Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet.
Like all three of those companies, Meta has a strong, growing core business that generates substantial operating cash flow. However, it has been their cloud computing units that have driven growth for these companies, as demand for both AI infrastructure services and solutions has been insatiable.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Moving to the cloud According to Bloomberg, Meta is still deciding whether to sell access to its computing infrastructure or host large language models (LLMs) in its data centers. Meta has developed its own LLMs, and many cloud providers offer their customers third-party AI models like those from Anthropic and OpenAI.
Regardless of which route it goes, the move into cloud computing demonstrates that there is currently so much demand for these services that it is difficult to overbuild your own AI infrastructure, since you can just rent it out to someone else. This is also something that Elon Musk's Space Exploration Technologies (a.k.a. SpaceX) has done, getting strong rates from other players in the field that need the capacity.
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For the stock, it should let investors focus on Meta's core business, which has been hitting on all cylinders. Last quarter, the company saw its revenue growth accelerate, climbing 33% to $56.3 billion.
The growth was driven by a combination of increased ad impressions, which jumped 19% year over year, and higher ad prices, which climbed 12% year over year. Meta is using AI to improve its recommendation algorithm, which keeps users on its apps longer and allows it to serve more ads to them. At the same time, AI is helping advertisers better target and convert users, which is driving up ad prices.
Despite its strong and accelerating revenue growth, Meta trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of only 18 times this year's analyst estimates. That's cheap for a leading company with that type of growth.
With the move into cloud computing helping ease concerns about overspending and bolstering its strong core business, Meta is one of my favorite AI stocks to own right now for the long term.
Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Indická vláda varovala Meta kvůli placené reklamě s materiály o sexuálním zneužívání dětí na Instagramu a požaduje okamžité stažení obsahu, který takové zneužívání propaguje. Firma musí do sedmi dnů vysvětlit situaci.
The Indian government has warned of action against two of Meta's three major platforms, WhatsApp and Instagram, within a week, underscoring the growing regulatory risks the U.S. social media giant faces in a key market.
On Saturday, India's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology issued a "stern notice to Meta over the presence of Child Sexual Exploitative & Abuse Material (CSEAM) in paid advertisements on Instagram," according to a report by Indian state broadcaster DD News.
The government has directed Instagram to "immediately disable all advertisements and content that promote" child abuse and has sought a detailed explanation from Meta within seven days, the report said.
The regulatory warning to Meta came after an investigation by the BBC revealed on Friday that Instagram was running paid advertisements promoting child sexual abuse material in India.
Meta has a "Zero tolerance policy" for child abuse-related content, a spokesperson for Meta told CNBC in an email. The company is using "AI technology to proactively detect violating content and individuals, but we are in a constant battle with criminals who hide among our 3.5 billion users and try to evade our detection," it added.
Earlier this year, the European Commission found that the social media giant was violating EU law by failing to prevent children below 13 from accessing its platforms. Though Meta had disagreed with the preliminary findings, it could face fines of up to 6% of its total worldwide annual turnover if the findings are confirmed.
The U.S. company is not facing an immediate risk of a fine in India, but has come under sharp regulatory scrutiny in its biggest market. The country has the largest audience base for Instagram, with more than 480 million users, more than double the U.S. as of 2025, as per data from Statista. It also has more than 400 million Facebook users, the most globally.
Neil Shah, vice president of research at Counterpoint Research, said this was a "wake-up call for Meta to tighten its compliance and control for its platforms" as the Indian government is keen "to tighten the leash over these massive digital platforms."
Last week, Meta's messaging app, WhatsApp, which has over half a million users in India, was also issued a warning over the roll-out of its username feature. The government claimed the feature could increase cybercrime incidents and has directed the platform to pause its plans.
Meta defended the introduction of usernames, calling it a "major privacy feature" designed to help people stay connected without giving away phone numbers.
"I would describe India as a more demanding regulatory market rather than a hostile one," Reema Bhattacharya, head of Asia research at Verisk Maplecroft, told CNBC. Given India's importance as a key digital market, she added that companies should expect regulators to engage more actively on "issues ranging from online safety to data governance."
Meta Platforms může v roce 2026 podpořit růst díky AI brýlím Reality Labs, které už mají 85% podíl na trhu s AI brýlemi. Meta Glasses firma uvedla v červnu s cenou od 224 USD.
Meta Platforms (META 4.80%) has been a jarring growth stock over the past year. It's down by 15% year to date, but its fundamentals continue to improve. The stock only trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of 20 and has solid growth rates already, so a single catalyst could result in a meaningful rally.
Reality Labs could be the catalyst. It's the AI hardware part of Meta Platforms' business that includes Quest headsets and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses. Here's what investors should know.
Image source: Getty Images.
Meta Glasses can become a major hit Meta Glasses are an innovative technology that let you take pictures, speak with AI tools, make and receive calls, and type on virtual surfaces just by wearing them. You don't have to pull out a smartphone to do any of those things anymore.
Meta Platforms debuted Meta Glasses in June with prices starting at $224. Payment plans are available starting at $19 per month, which lasts for two years at 0% APR. These prices are well within the ballpark of what many people can pay, including the $19 monthly plan. This technology is no longer science fiction, and just as importantly, it's more accessible to the average consumer.
While Meta Platforms released smart glasses a few years ago that had a relatively muted reception, those smart glasses were technologically limited and had no AI capabilities. They just let you take pictures using your glasses instead of taking out your smartphone. They were pretty much cameras with no other features. These current AI glasses are far more advanced, which can help them generate more traction.
The company has a massive head start compared to competitors in this new industry. It controls 85% of the AI glasses industry and already has 3.56 billion daily active users on its family of apps, which is a 4% year-over-year increase. Meta Platforms can promote its AI Glasses to its vast user base to get quick momentum and preserve its comfortable lead over competitors.
Having control over a high-potential industry remains compelling. Grand View Research projects a 24.2% CAGR for the smart glasses market through 2033, but the research company also estimates that the smart glasses market is only worth $3.2 billion. If it gets anywhere close to the smartphone market's $556.4 billion total valuation, this early start will be massive.
The success of Meta's AI Glasses should make it much easier for the company to sell other consumer hardware, similar to how Apple sells iPhones and MacBooks. The AI Glasses segment may be a sleeping giant, and the stock's 20 P/E ratio leaves a lot of room for upside momentum if that proves to be the case.
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Meta Platforms is already delivering high growth rates Even though Meta Platforms' stock has been stuck in the mud for more than a year, it continues to gain market share in the online advertising industry. Revenue surged by 33% year over year in Q1, with operating income rising by 30%. Meta Platforms closed out the first quarter with a robust 41% operating profit margin, which makes the current valuation even more baffling.
Meta Platforms' vast amount of capital and high profits make it easier to invest heavily into projects like AI Glasses until they become profitable. AI Glasses can also give Meta Platforms' advertising revenue a boost by creating more ad impressions.
Meta AI Glasses don't have to make up a big portion of total revenue right now. Just an announcement in the upcoming Q2 earnings release that shows meaningful momentum in this segment, combined with results investors have become accustomed to, may be enough to trigger a rally.
Meta podle zpráv jedná se Samsung Foundry o zakázce v hodnotě zhruba 6,5 miliardy USD na výrobu třetí generace čipů MTIA. Přechází tak na 2nm proces Samsung SF2 s technologií Gate-All-Around (GAA).
The AI arms race has entered a new phase. For the past three years, the biggest technology companies have competed by buying as many Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA | NVDA Price Prediction) GPUs as they could get their hands on. Now they’re racing to build something even more valuable: their own AI chips.
That shift is about more than lowering costs. It gives hyperscalers greater control over performance, supply chains, and the pace of innovation. Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) appears ready to take another major step in that direction with a reported $6.5 billion agreement that could strengthen its long-term AI ambitions while reshaping the semiconductor landscape.
Meta Is Building More Than Just Another AI Chip According to reports from Korean media, Meta is negotiating a roughly $6.5 billion agreement with Samsung Foundry to manufacture its third-generation Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA) processors. Unlike the first two MTIA generations, which were built by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (NYSE:TSM), the new chips would be produced using Samsung’s cutting-edge 2-nanometer SF2 manufacturing process featuring Gate-All-Around (GAA) transistor technology.
The scale of the reported agreement stands out. The contract reportedly covers hundreds of thousands of semiconductor wafers, making it one of Samsung Foundry’s largest AI orders after its reported $16.5 billion Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) agreement.
The supplier change is just as important as the technology.
MTIA Generation Manufacturing Partner Strategic Focus First Generation TSM Launch custom AI silicon Second Generation TSM Expand AI inference capabilities Third Generation (reported) Samsung Foundry Diversify supply chain and adopt 2nm process This isn’t simply about building faster chips. It’s about ensuring Meta can keep expanding its AI infrastructure without depending on a single manufacturing partner.
Why This Matters for Meta’s AI Strategy Meta has made no secret of its AI ambitions. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said the company plans to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in AI infrastructure while targeting as much as 5 gigawatts of computing capacity by 2030. That scale demands more than buying Nvidia hardware — it requires custom silicon optimized for Meta’s own Llama models and recommendation engines.
Custom chips also improve economics. NVIDIA’s GPUs remain the gold standard for AI training, but they command premium pricing and face periodic supply constraints. By designing its own accelerators, Meta can tailor performance to its workloads while reducing dependence on outside suppliers.
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Looking ahead, these chips could support something even bigger. As Meta expands into AI cloud services, proprietary hardware could become a competitive advantage, much like Amazon‘s (NASDAQ:AMZN) AWS built custom Graviton processors or Google developed its Tensor Processing Units (TPUs).
The Bigger Trend Investors Should Watch Meta isn’t acting alone. Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG), Amazon, Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Tesla have all invested heavily in custom AI silicon. The common goal is simple: reduce long-term infrastructure costs while differentiating their AI platforms.
That doesn’t spell the end for Nvidia. Training frontier AI models will continue requiring enormous numbers of GPUs for years. But inference — the process of actually running AI models — and specialized workloads increasingly favor application-specific chips that consume less power and cost less to operate.
Samsung also benefits if the reported agreement closes. After trailing TSM in advanced manufacturing for years, landing another hyperscaler on its 2nm process would strengthen its credibility and help build momentum for its foundry business.
Key Takeaway In short, Meta’s reported $6.5 billion Samsung agreement is about far more than changing chip suppliers. It’s another sign that the largest AI companies are shifting from buying generic hardware to building customized infrastructure designed around their own software.
Granted, Nvidia remains the dominant force in AI accelerators, and custom chips won’t replace its GPUs overnight. That said, investors should recognize the broader trend. The AI chip market is becoming more fragmented, with hyperscalers increasingly controlling their own destinies.
Ultimately, Meta’s reported move strengthens its long-term competitive position by lowering supply chain risk, improving cost control, and supporting future cloud ambitions. For long-term shareholders, that’s the real story — and one worth following well beyond the latest headline.
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Meta Platforms plánuje v roce 2026 kapitálové výdaje ve výši 125 až 145 miliard USD, hlavně na AI infrastrukturu. Cílem je posílit reklamu, která tvořila 98 % tržeb v prvním čtvrtletí.
The market is focused these days on the immense amount of capital flooding the artificial intelligence (AI) build-out. The hyperscalers are getting all the attention as they embark on an extraordinary investment cycle.
Meta Platforms (META 4.80%) is one such business. The dominant social media platform, which has historically posted huge profits and free cash flow, plans to spend $125 billion to $145 billion on capital expenditures (capex) in 2026, mostly for AI infrastructure. That upper bound is about double the $72 billion figure from last year.
Investors are probably wondering why Meta is transitioning from a capital-light business to a capital-intensive one. There might only be one reason.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
It's all about Meta's advertising On the Q1 2025 earnings call, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company has five major opportunities related to the AI revolution. The list includes better recommendations and content, business messaging, the Meta AI assistant, and AI devices. But perhaps the most important priority is leveraging AI to improve advertising capabilities.
"Our goal is to make it so that any business can basically tell us what objective they're trying to achieve -- like selling something or getting a new customer -- and how much they're willing to pay for each result, and then we just do the rest," Zuckerberg mentioned on the call.
He continued by saying that if Meta is successful in this regard, then "the increased productivity from AI will make advertising a meaningfully larger share of global GDP than it is today."
Connect the dots, and it becomes clear that Meta's ultimate goal is to keep growing its ad revenue at a rapid clip over the long haul. Ad sales totaled $55 billion in the first quarter (ended March 31), representing 98% of the company's entire top line. Advertising is what Meta is all about. That's not going to change.
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The market looks concerned During Q1, Meta reported a 19% year-over-year increase in ad impressions, while the average price per ad rose 12%. These two variables helped lift the company's revenue by 33% compared to the first quarter of 2025. That was the fastest growth rate since Q3 2021.
To justify the $135 billion in capex earmarked for 2026, investors will become more demanding about Meta's financial performance. In fact, they probably already are, as the "Magnificent Seven" stock is down 15% in 2026 (as of June 29) and 29% off its record.
Time will tell whether this AI capex boom will lead to satisfactory returns for one of the world's elite businesses.
SummaryMeta Platforms is rated a Strong Buy due to accelerating revenue growth, driven by AI-enhanced advertising and expanding monetization avenues.META's AI-powered Advantage+ campaigns deliver 17% higher ROAS and 32% lower CPA, fueling advertiser spend and supporting sustained revenue growth.Subscriptions and wearables offer incremental upside, while Reality Labs' AI glasses show rapid adoption, though profitability remains a wildcard.Custom ASIC investments are expected to mitigate long-term CapEx pressures, potentially boosting free cash flow margins and supporting high-teens CAGR returns. Kira-Yan/iStock Editorial via Getty Images
Investment Thesis Meta Platforms (META) has been investing heavily in AI infrastructure, which has investors concerned as to whether or not they will see a return on these massive investments. Despite these doubts, Meta is experiencing revenue growth acceleration, which is being driven
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Mark Zuckerberg řekl, že vývoj AI agentů v Meta za poslední čtyři měsíce nepostupoval tak rychle, jak čekal. Firma podle něj začne z investic do AI těžit výrazněji během tří až šesti měsíců.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wears the Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, as he delivers a speech presenting the new line of smart glasses, during the Meta Connect event at the company's headquarters... Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab Read more
NEW YORK, July 2 (Reuters) - Meta (META.O), opens new tab Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg told an internal town hall on Thursday that AI agent development over the last four months had not "accelerated in the way we expected," according to a recording heard by Reuters.
Zuckerberg added that a company reorganization that included major job cuts was not as "clean" as it could have been and that the company's bets on the new structure "haven't come to fruition yet."
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Meta is projected to spend as much as $145 billion on AI infrastructure this year, a significant portion of Big Tech's more than $700 billion outlay on the technology.
Zuckerberg said he expects that the social media giant will begin to experience more significant benefits from its AI investments within the next three to six months.
A Meta spokesperson declined to comment on Thursday.
In the same town hall, Meta's chief technology officer, Andrew Bosworth, said a review of a recent data security incident with the company's controversial mouse-tracking software indicated that no employee data was included in AI training.
Last month, Meta paused the program, which tracks employee mouse movements and digital activity for AI training, while investigating the exposure of sensitive data.
If the company turns the program back on once the review is completed, it will be on an "opt-in" basis, he said.
When Meta first installed the program on U.S. employees' computers in April, Bosworth told them there was no way to opt out.
Reporting by Katie Paul in New York and Courtney Rozen in Washington; Additional reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Henderson and Matthew Lewis
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Courtney Rozen reports on the world's largest technology companies from Washington, D.C., focusing on the relationship between the tech industry and the U.S. government. She reported on DOGE and the federal workforce during the first year of U.S. President Donald Trump’s second term. Prior to joining Reuters, she was a White House correspondent at Bloomberg Government. She graduated from American University with a master's degree in journalism.
Meta ustoupila od akvizice Kalshi, protože kolem platformy panovaly „příliš zamotané“ regulační a etické otázky. Firma mezitím oznámila, že si chce vyvíjet vlastní play-money prediction market aplikaci.
Mark Zuckerberg just dodged a bullet. Zuckerberg, whom speculators give 32% odds of becoming the next trillionaire, came eerily close to steering Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction) into one of the most legally and ethically fraught corners of consumer tech. According to NPR reporting from June 30, Zuckerberg personally floated an acquisition of prediction market platform Kalshi. Fortunately for him, the talks never advanced. The reason Meta walked away is the same reason investors should be relieved: the company judged the outstanding questions around Kalshi to be “too messy.”
Context matters. Meta just posted Q1 2026 revenue of $56.31 billion, up 33.1% year over year, with EPS of $10.44 versus a $6.66 estimate and Family of Apps daily active people reaching 3.56 billion, up 4% year-over-year. This is a $1.28 trillion company trading at roughly 20x trailing earnings. Bolting a regulated gambling venue onto that engine offered limited financial upside and enormous risk potential.
Why Kalshi Would Have Been a Disaster Prediction markets are riding a gambling wave. Amounts wagered on sports in the U.S. hit $165 billion in 2025, up from $6.6 billion in 2018. Kalshi’s platform spans 13 categories including elections, economics, sports, crypto, tech, and entertainment, a footprint that would thrust Meta squarely in front of the CFTC, state gaming regulators, and Congress.
Meta already faces EU and U.S. regulatory headwinds and youth-related litigation trials in 2026. The EU is escalating its probe into alleged addictive design elements impacting children, and Meta is negotiating with U.S. regulators for a voluntary review of its AI models. Bolting on a real-money betting venue to that pile would have placed another bullseye on Meta’s back.
Meta Pipeline While Kalshi was a distraction Meta avoided, the company’s actual pipeline is moving on several fronts.
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Mini-games social feed. Meta is rolling out a new app featuring a social feed of vibe-coded mini-games in select regions, per Insider, an early signal of where the company sees lightweight interactive content heading. Meta Compute. Bloomberg reports Meta is developing a cloud infrastructure business to monetize excess AI compute capacity, internally dubbed Meta Compute. The initiative encompasses three layers: AI model access hosted on Meta’s own infrastructure comparable to AWS Bedrock, raw compute capacity available to third parties, closer to CoreWeave’s model, and direct developer access to Meta’s data centers, chips, and models. Meta shares surged more than 7% on the news. AI spending per employee. Meta spent nearly $50,000 per employee annually on AI tokens, per the New York Times, a figure that highlights how deeply the company has embedded AI tooling into its workforce before selling any of that capacity externally. Wolfe Research estimates Meta’s potential AI cloud business could lift EPS by roughly 20% for every 1 gigawatt of compute monetized at a $25 billion revenue run rate. The firm projects Meta’s 2027 capital expenditures at $200 billion, well above the Street’s $160 billion estimate, while maintaining an Outperform rating and an $800 price target. A Kalshi acquisition could have dropped a regulatory grenade into the middle of all of it.
The Market Verdict Reddit reacted quickly. A thread titled “Suckerberg panic bought the entire AI chip supply and now he has no idea what to do with it” hit 11,356 upvotes on r/wallstreetbets. Meanwhile, a companion “$META accepted defeat” post on r/stocks drew 1,184 upvotes and 448 comments. Ironically, prediction markets themselves priced the news as a modest negative: Polymarket assigned a 0.99 probability that META closes down on July 2.
Zuckerberg’s stated priority is “personal superintelligence,” backed by capex guidance of $125 to $145 billion in 2026. Reports suggest Meta is now building a play-money prediction market app in-house, carrying a far lighter regulatory footprint. Analysts still carry a consensus target of $827.32, with 57 buy ratings and zero sells. Passing on Kalshi kept that thesis intact.
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It's rare for a stock the size of Meta Platforms (META +8.88%) to jump 9% on non-earnings news, but that's exactly what happened on Wednesday, and for good reason.
Bloomberg reported that the social media giant is launching its own cloud computing business. Though Meta hasn't made its own announcement about a new cloud infrastructure service, the news comes weeks after CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that a cloud business was "definitely on the table."
The move added about $150 billion to Meta's market cap as investors are hopeful it could unlock a second profitable revenue stream for the company, complementing its advertising juggernaut, and leverage infrastructure it already owns. Cloud computing has become a huge cash cow for Meta's big tech peers like Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet, and all three are reporting accelerating growth in the cloud, showing demand for compute infrastructure skyrocketing in the AI era. Meta is also considered the fourth hyperscaler, though it's the only one without a cloud business. Zuckerberg has said that his company receives interest in cloud services every week, and that companies are willing to pay a premium, suggesting it should be able to hit the ground running when it launches.
The shockwaves from the news were felt throughout the tech sector as neocloud companies like CoreWeave and Nebius fell by double digits as Meta represents a huge new competitor, and chip stocks like Micron were down sharply as well, as investors interpreted the news as an increase in chip supply, which would hurt "bottleneck" plays like Micron, which have soared in recent months on the memory shortage. Additionally, it could signal a peak in the AI capex investment cycle.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
What's in Meta's new cloud service The service is still in development, but according to the report, Meta is planning on offering two primary services. The first is access to bare-metal computing capacity, essentially renting out its AI chips to companies willing to pay for them. This is CoreWeave's business model, and it's driven several quarters of triple-digit revenue growth, though CoreWeave has had to take on billions in debt to build out its data centers to meet demand, leading to losses.
Like Amazon's Bedrock, Meta is also expected to host AI models, including those from its new Muse Spark LLM, and charge developers to access them.
Meta's cash cow advertising business and the money it's already invested in AI infrastructure give it a competitive advantage against companies like CoreWeave, which don't have the cash cushion that Meta has, nor do they have another way to monetize cloud demand as Meta is doing with its AI models.
Getting into the cloud business looks like a smart business move. If Meta can turn an asset it owns from a high-risk investment to a profit center, why wouldn't it do so? It also shows Zuckerberg may be starting to act more rationally and follow the market, rather than his own product vision and desires, which have mostly led to flops.
Finally, there's a bonanza going on in AI cloud computing, which has driven bumper profits for the three leading hyperscalers. Google Cloud, the smallest of the three leaders, was losing money as recently as 2022, with a loss of $1.9 billion that year, but its profits have soared in the AI era as both demand and prices for cloud computing have gone up. By 2025, its operating income had jumped to $13.9 billion, more than doubling from the year before.
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Prior to the cloud computing report, Meta stock had slumped on worries that its AI investments weren't paying off, on reports of low morale following several rounds of layoffs, and concerns that it was overspending after lifting its capex forecast to $125 billion-$145 billion this year.
As a result, the stock now trades at a very attractive price-to-earnings ratio of 22, and that's after it reported 33% revenue growth in the first quarter, showing the core business is strong.
While the details on the cloud business aren't fully clear, if it executes effectively, a Meta Cloud could be where Google Cloud is today in five or ten years, as there's plenty of demand for it.
Trading at a discount to the S&P 500, the stock looks like a no-brainer buy on plans to launch a cloud business.
WhatsApp zavádí uživatelská jména a chce omezit přivlastňování si známých jmen jen skutečným majitelům, aby zabránil vydávání se za jiné účty. Meta zároveň přidává více vrstev ochrany proti podvodům.
WhatsApp recently began offering usernames, designed to help people connect while keeping their phone numbers private.
Now, the Meta-owned company said it will allow high-profile names to be claimed only by legitimate owners as it tries to prevent impersonation on the messaging platform, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday (July 1).
The username feature was introduced Monday (June 29), when Meta began letting customers reserve a unique handle for launch later in the year.
“Usernames are our latest step to make WhatsApp even more private. There’s no directory to browse and no suggestions—people will need to know your exact username to contact you for the first time,” the company wrote in its announcement.
According to the Bloomberg report, the move is facing scrutiny from India’s government, which is expected to call on WhatApp to explain the implications of the feature. Meta told Bloomberg it has built several layers of protection against scams into WhatsApp’s usernames offering.
“Other users need to know the exact username to message you, we will limit how many new people an account can contact, block repeated attempts to guess someone’s username key, and have systems to detect and remove activity showing common impersonation and abuse patterns,” the company said.
Bloomberg noted that India represents the largest market for WhatsApp with upwards of 600 million users, meaning any serious government pushback can hinder the global rollout of the username feature.
This is happening at a time when scammers are increasingly using social media channels to target their victims. Findings by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released in April showed that nearly 30% of people who reported losing money in a scam last year say that the scam began on social media.
“Scammers may hack a user’s account, exploit what a user posts to figure out how to target them, or buy ads and use the same tools used by real businesses to target people by age, interests or shopping habits,” the commission said.
The FTC’s data are in line with PYMNTS Intelligence research which showed that digital communication channels are among the most common ways cybercriminals make their first contact with financial scams victims.
Meta introduced a series of artificial intelligence-powered anti-scam tools for WhatsApp, Facebook and Messenger earlier this year.
In the case of WhatApp, that meant a warning system that alerts users of potentially suspicious device-linking requests, aimed at preventing scams where fraudsters try to dupe WhatsApp users into connecting their account to another device.
Akcie Nebius a CoreWeave byly v ranním obchodování asi o 15 % níže a IREN klesla asi o 6,5 % po zprávě, že Meta zvažuje vlastní cloud a prodej přebytečné kapacity pro AI. Trh to čte jako rostoucí konkurenci pro neocloudy.
The artificial intelligence buildout has created one of the largest infrastructure races in technology history. Companies across the industry are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on data centers, GPUs, networking equipment, and energy capacity to support AI models. Annual AI infrastructure spending by the major hyperscalers is approaching $750 billion, as they, startups, and governments compete for compute power.
That spending wave created a new class of AI infrastructure companies known as “neoclouds.” These specialized providers built businesses around supplying GPU clusters and high-performance computing capacity faster than traditional cloud providers could deliver. But a report from Bloomberg this morning that Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction) is exploring its own cloud business under its Meta Compute initiative sent shares of several AI infrastructure companies lower — raising a bigger question for investors: Is the neocloud opportunity shrinking just as quickly as it emerged?
Shares of Nebius Group (NASDAQ:NBIS), CoreWeave (NASDAQ:CRWV), and IREN (NASDAQ:IREN) are all declining following the news. Nebius and CoreWeave were down about 15% in morning trading, while IREN declined about 6.5%. Meta Platforms is up over 10%.
The market reaction reflects a simple concern: Meta is not just a customer anymore — it could become a competitor.
Neoclouds Built a Business Around AI’s Compute Shortage Neocloud companies exist because AI demand moved faster than traditional cloud capacity.
The biggest cloud providers — Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG) — remain dominant, but AI companies need GPU capacity immediately. That opened the door for companies focused almost entirely on AI workloads.
Here is how the major players compare:
Company Focus Key Customers/Partners Nebius Full-stack AI cloud, GPU clusters, AI infrastructure Meta, Microsoft CoreWeave Nvidia GPU-focused AI cloud Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic IREN Renewable-powered AI/HPC data centers Microsoft, AI customers Nebius gained attention after securing a deal with Meta worth up to about $27 billion over five years. Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) has invested billions in the company. Nebius is building an AI-focused cloud platform designed around GPU infrastructure.
CoreWeave has followed a similar path. The company’s business model centers on Nvidia GPU availability and optimized AI computing environments. Its agreement with Meta reportedly totals about $21 billion, alongside partnerships involving OpenAI and Anthropic.
IREN took a different route. Originally focused on Bitcoin (CRYPTO:BTC) mining, the company has shifted toward AI and high-performance computing data centers, using renewable energy as part of its infrastructure strategy.
Meta’s Move Is a Risk — But Also a Validation Bloomberg reported that Meta is considering selling excess AI compute capacity through Meta Compute. The company could eventually offer raw GPU capacity or AI-related services. The plans remain early and could change.
The concern, though, is obvious. If Meta spends billions building AI infrastructure and then sells unused capacity, it could pressure pricing for companies whose business depends on renting GPUs.
But there is another side, too. Meta’s own AI ambitions are enormous. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has discussed building massive AI infrastructure to support Llama models and future “superintelligence” efforts. Meta has indicated it expects to build tens of gigawatts of AI capacity over time. Selling excess capacity would be a way to improve returns on those investments.
That strategy is not unusual. Companies with expensive infrastructure often monetize unused capacity. SpaceX (NASDAQ:SPCX), for example, uses its technology platform to serve outside customers through its Starlink business.
Surprisingly, Meta becoming a potential competitor also confirms the scale of the opportunity. Companies do not spend hundreds of billions of dollars building AI infrastructure because demand is disappearing.
The Bigger Risk Is Not Meta — It Is Supply and Execution Granted, neocloud investors need to understand the risks. These companies have attractive growth opportunities, but they also carry heavy capital requirements. Building AI data centers requires billions of dollars in GPUs, power infrastructure, and financing.
The risks include:
AI demand slowing before capacity investments generate returns Hyperscalers flooding the market with cheaper compute Higher interest rates increasing financing costs Customer concentration creating bargaining pressure Customer concentration is especially important. Meta and Microsoft are valuable partners, but they also have the resources to build internally.
That said, neocloud companies still offer advantages. They can deploy specialized AI infrastructure faster, provide flexible capacity, and serve customers that need immediate access to GPUs.
In short, the market reaction looks more like a reset of expectations than the end of the neocloud story.
Key Takeaway Meta’s cloud ambitions are a reminder that the AI infrastructure race will become more competitive. Neocloud companies cannot assume today’s demand environment will continue forever. But investors should not confuse competition with collapse.
Meta’s willingness to spend billions on AI infrastructure supports the core investment thesis: compute demand remains massive. The companies best positioned for the next phase will likely be those with strong contracts, diversified customers, efficient data center operations, and specialized offerings.
For investors, the question is not whether AI compute demand exists. The question is which companies can turn that demand into durable profits as the industry matures.
Meta jmenovala Alexe Schultze prvním chief data officerem, aby lépe řídil globální AI analytiku. Denise Morenoová se zároveň stává marketingovou šéfkou.
A woman walks by the Meta Lab in Los Angeles, California, U.S., May 20, 2026. REUTERS/Daniel Cole/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
July 1 (Reuters) - Meta said on Wednesday its chief marketing officer Alex Schultz will become the company's first chief data officer, to better manage AI analytics globally.
The Facebook-parent also promoted its vice president of consumer marketing and growth, Denise Moreno, to marketing chief.
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"My focus in this new role will be helping transform how Meta learns and makes decisions in the AI era," Schultz said in a LinkedIn post, opens new tab.
The leadership changes signal at Meta's move to deepen its focus on data-driven decision-making and AI integration across its operations.
Schultz joined the company in 2007 and held responsibilities across various domains like developing Meta's brand strategy and WhatsApp privacy campaigns, according to his LinkedIn page.
Shares of Meta were up 10% after Bloomberg News reported earlier on Wednesday that the company is building a cloud business to sell excess AI computing capacity.
A 17-year veteran at Meta, Moreno began her career managing email marketing and growth experiments, she said, opens new tab in a separate post.
Axios first reported about Meta naming Schultz as its chief data officer and elevating Moreno as CMO.
Meta is projected to spend as much as $145 billion on AI infrastructure this year, a significant portion of Big Tech's more than $700 billion outlay on the technology.
Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Joyjeet Das
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Meta Platforms chce prodávat přebytečný výpočetní výkon ze své AI infrastruktury, kterou sama vybudovala. Tím by se z nevyužité kapacity stal nový zdroj tržeb.
Meta Platforms Inc's (NASDAQ:META, XETRA:FB2A, SIX:FB) plan to sell spare computing power is less a bold expansion than an admission, that the company has built so much AI capacity it now needs somewhere to put the surplus.
The Facebook and Instagram owner has spent heavily on data centres and chips to chase its artificial intelligence ambitions, a spree that has repeatedly unsettled investors worried about where the returns will come from.
Selling access to that infrastructure reframes the question.
Excess compute that would otherwise sit idle becomes a revenue line, and the capital budget that spooked the market starts to look less like a bet and more like a hedge.
It also drops Meta into direct competition with Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, the three companies that dominate cloud infrastructure and treat it as a core profit engine rather than an afterthought.
That is the awkward part of the strategy.
Meta would be entering a mature, margin-sensitive market as the newest and least proven vendor, pitching capacity to customers who may also be rivals or wary of feeding a social media giant their AI workloads.
The move borrows directly from Amazon's origin story, where internal infrastructure built for the retail business was rented out and became the industry's most profitable cloud operation.
Whether Meta can repeat that trick is unproven because renting compute is a service business with support, reliability and enterprise sales demands that differ sharply from running social networks.
Still, the logic is hard to fault.
If the AI arms race forces hyperscalers to over-build to avoid being caught short, monetising the overhang is the rational response, and it gives Meta a partial answer to the capex critics.
The signal to watch is pricing, because a company sitting on surplus capacity has every incentive to undercut, and that could squeeze the incumbents' fattest margins.
Soud zamítl snahu Meta zrušit žalobu 29 generálních prokurátorů států, kteří ji viní z navrhování Facebooku a Instagramu tak, aby děti na platformách „závisely“. Soud zároveň uvedl, že Meta neplnila pravidla zákona o ochraně soukromí dětí.
A federal judge rejected Meta Platforms’ bid to dismiss a lawsuit by 29 state attorneys general accusing it of designing Facebook and Instagram to addict children and knowingly concealing the harm from the public.
In a decision late on Monday night, US District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers in Oakland, Calif., denied Meta’s motion to dismiss claims based on deception, unfair practices and violations of the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
The judge also said Meta did not comply with that law’s notice and parental consent requirements, and granted summary judgment to the states on that issue.
Meta’s bid to dismiss a lawsuit by 29 state attorneys general accusing it of designing Facebook and Instagram to addict children and knowingly concealing the harm from the public was rejected. Bloomberg via Getty Images Meta and its lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
Gonzalez Rogers also oversees related multidistrict litigation by more than 2,600 individuals, school districts and local governments over whether social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Google and YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok addict children.
Meta downplays harms The states said research has shown that children’s use of Facebook and Instagram could lead to depression, anxiety, insomnia, interference with education and daily life, and self-harm including suicide.
Meta countered that the attorneys general had no evidence it misled consumers about its platforms’ alleged addictiveness, including in congressional testimony by Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg.
The Menlo Park, Calif.-based company said this was because “social media addiction” is not an established psychiatric condition, and therefore statements that its platforms are not addictive could not be false.
The states said research has shown that children’s use of Facebook and Instagram could lead to depression, anxiety, insomnia, interference with education and daily life, and self-harm including suicide. Above, victims’ families after a trial in Los Angeles earlier this year. Andy Johnstone for CA Post
The judge also said Meta did not comply with that law’s notice and parental consent requirements. Getty Images Meta also said it didn’t violate the children’s online privacy law because it directed Facebook and Instagram to a general audience, not just children under age 13.
Judge finds factual disputes about addictiveness In a 38-page decision, Gonzalez Rogers found material factual disputes over whether Meta’s social media platforms are addictive, whether Meta falsely denied it designed them that way, and whether it “partially” directed the platforms at children.
“The AGs present a reasonable interpretation of [Meta’s] statements that Facebook and Instagram are not designed in ways that cause teens to compulsively use the platforms to their detriment,” she wrote. “To the extent plaintiffs’ evidence shows that the platforms are in fact designed to do just that, a jury could reasonably find the statements were untrue to a reasonable person.”
A trial is scheduled for Aug. 18, court records show.
Despite reporting its fastest quarterly growth since the pandemic in the first quarter, Meta Platforms (META +1.50%) has struggled this year.
The stock is down 17% year-to-date due to concerns about rising capital expenditures, layoffs, and artificial intelligence strategy that increasingly seems undisciplined.
As a result, Meta stock is looking unusually cheap, trading at a forward P/E of just 17, which is dirt cheap for a company that just grew its revenue by 33%.
At this point, the company needs a catalyst to change its narrative, and it's hopeful that its latest iteration of smart glasses can help do that.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Meta has been building out its smart glasses business for years now, partnering with brands like Ray-Ban and Oakley.
At $299, the new Meta are $80 less than its previous entry-level glasses, and it's partnering with Ray-Ban parent EssilorLuxottica to make them, though they won't carry the Ray-Ban brand.
The glasses come in 26 styles and include Meta AI, powered by Muse Spark, its new and improved large language model that replaced LLaMa.
Meta sees glasses as the ideal device for the AI era, as users can easily communicate with them, and they provide an AI assistant that can see what you're seeing.
EssilorLuxottica said it sold more than 7 million of the AI glasses in 2025, up from just 2 million combined in 2023 and 2024, a sign that smart glasses are making progress in going mainstream.
However, Meta will have to ramp up glasses considerably to move the needle on the top line. Assuming an average price of $400 for those glasses, they would generate $2.8 billion in revenue, though that would be split between the two companies.
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Meta's AI strategy In 2025, Reality Labs, Meta's division that contains its smart devices, including glasses and VR headsets, AI labs, and metaverse projects, reported just $2.2 billion in revenue, essentially flat from the year before. Reality Labs lost $19.2 billion due to its spending on AI infrastructure. In 2026, the company expects 70% of its Reality Labs, or roughly $15 billion in expenses, to go to wearables like glasses and VR headsets.
Given the ongoing losses at Reality Labs and the company's plan to spend $125 billion-$145 billion in capital expenditures this year, it's understandable that investors want to see a return on that investment. Some of its AI spending is going to support the core family of apps business, and its advertising engine, which brought in more than $80 billion in operating income last year.
Meta is also the only one of the four major hyperscalers, which includes Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft, that doesn't have a cloud computing business. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that starting one is "definitely on the table," and doing so seems like a smart move for the company, as it's already receiving interest from prospective customers.
In the AI era, demand for cloud infrastructure has skyrocketed, and Amazon, Alphabet, and Microsoft are all seeing accelerating growth in their cloud businesses, a sign that there would be sufficient demand for a Meta Cloud.
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What it means for investors At this point, Meta seems oversold. Like Microsoft, the stock has tumbled on concerns that it's overspending on capex, but there's no structural risk to the advertising business, and a forward P/E of 17 is a great price to pay for a company that dominates social media and has an operating margin of 41%, even with the losses in Reality Labs.
For the glasses business to make up 10% of its current revenue, Meta would need to grow that business to $20 billion, which could mean selling around 40 million of them. That won't be easy, but its recent progress shouldn't be overlooked, and a price point as low as $299 is likely to pull in some buyers.
At the current stock price, Meta's risks seem more than priced in. The company doesn't need glasses to be successful for the stock to work, but investors seem to be overlooking the possibility that the business does continue to scale and establish a viable second revenue stream for Meta.
Mark Zuckerberg chce, aby Meta prozkoumala spolupráci s Polymarket a Kalshi, zatímco vyvíjí vlastní predikční aplikaci Arena. Ta má používat body místo reálných sázek.
People walk behind a logo of Meta Platforms company, during a conference in Mumbai, India, September 20, 2023. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
June 26 (Reuters) - Meta (META.O), opens new tab CEO Mark Zuckerberg has urged his lieutenants to explore partnerships with the popular prediction markets Polymarket and Kalshi as his company builds a similar app, the New York Times said on Friday, citing three employees with knowledge of the matter.
Meta and Kalshi did not immediately respond to requests for comment, while Polymarket declined to comment when contacted by Reuters. Reuters could not independently verify the report.
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The social media company's executives have said Arena, Meta's new prediction market app under development, will differ from Polymarket and Kalshi, which accept real-money wagers, because it will instead rely on video-game-like "points", the report said.
Prediction markets surged in popularity during the 2024 U.S. presidential election and have evolved into an asset class that lets investors wager on a variety of events, from monetary policy to sports tournaments.
But they have also drawn increasing scrutiny as well-timed trades ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's major policy surprises have potentially led to millions of dollars in profits for unknown traders.
Zuckerberg's target demographic for Arena is 18- to 34-year-olds and Meta is aiming to reach at least 100 million monthly active "predictors" for the app, according to the report.
Arena is being tested internally and may not be released, the report said, adding that Meta plans to eventually integrate parts of Arena into Facebook and Messenger.
The Times first reported on Tuesday that Zuckerberg recently dispatched a small team at his company to create a smartphone app similar to Polymarket and Kalshi.
Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Tržby společnosti Meta Platforms meziročně vzrostly o 33 % na 56,3 miliardy USD díky růstu zapojení do AI. Na 2. čtvrtletí 2026 očekává tržby 58 až 61 miliard USD.
Key Takeaways Meta Platforms posted 33% year-over-year revenue growth to $56.3 billion, aided by AI engagement. META saw Reels watch time rise 10%, while AI-translated videos reach 500M weekly viewers. Meta Platforms expects Q2 2026 revenues of $58B-$61B as it expands AI infrastructure. Meta Platform (META - Free Report) is benefiting from its accelerating growth into artificial intelligence (AI), which is driving significant top-line growth and positioning the company for further upside.
META’s release of the Muse family of models and the upgraded Meta AI assistant has positioned the company as a leader in personal superintelligence, with billions of users now accessing these AI-powered features. This surge in AI-driven engagement is translating directly into top-line growth, as evidenced by a 33% year-over-year increase in total revenues to $56.3 billion for the first quarter of 2026.
The company’s focus on integrating AI into its platforms, which includes Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger, and Threads, is driving user as well as advertising engagements. AI is heavily dependent on data, of which META has a trove, driven by its more than 3.56 billion daily users. Meta Platforms continues to see strong engagement trends with Instagram Reels, where watch time increased by 10% and Facebook video time increased by 8% globally in the first quarter of 2026. AI-translated videos are now watched weekly by more than 500 million users on Facebook and Instagram. Threads continue to grow with more than 500 million monthly active users.
Meta Platforms’ generative AI advertising tools are gaining strong traction, with more than 8 million advertisers using at least one GenAI ad creative tool in the first quarter of 2026. Video generation tools improved conversion rates by more than 3% while adoption among small and medium businesses has been particularly strong.
Meta Platforms is spending heavily on expanding AI infrastructure, which is expected to benefit the company’s top-line growth. For the second quarter of 2026, the company expects total revenues between $58 billion and $61 billion.
META Faces Stiff CompetitionMeta Platforms is facing stiff competition from competitors like Snap (SNAP - Free Report) and Reddit (RDDT - Free Report) . Both Snap and Reddit are expanding their portfolio in the AI space.
Reddit’s investments in artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tools remain noteworthy. The launch and adoption of Reddit Max, an automated, AI-powered campaign tool, enabled advertisers to achieve a 17% reduction in cost per action and a 25% increase in conversion rate in the first quarter of 2026. About 50% of Max campaign advertisers now use AI-powered creative features, and brands like Cozy have reported a 35% higher ROAS and a 28% lower cost per acquisition with these tools.
Snap has reached 956 million monthly active users and 483 million daily active users in the first quarter of 2026, driven by the continued adoption of Augmented Reality Lenses, Spotlight and AI-powered features. Key growth drivers include its AI-powered automation solutions, AI Sponsored Snaps, Sponsored Snaps, Promoted Places, Dynamic Product Ads and subscription offerings, including Snapchat+, Memories Storage and Lens+.
META’s Share Price Performance, Valuation, and EstimatesMETA’s shares have lost 15.6% in the year-to-date period, underperforming the broader Zacks Computer & Technology sector’s return of 14.9%.
META Stock Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
META shares are overvalued, with a forward 12-month Price/Sales of 5.09X compared with the Internet - Software’s 3.54X. META has a Value Score of C.
META Valuation
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 earnings is pegged at $33.01 per share, which has increased by a penny over the past 30 days. This suggests 40.53% year-over-year growth.
Meta Platforms currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Meta ustupuje od nuceného přeřazení zaměstnanců do AI školení a nově nechává rozhodnutí na jednotlivcích. Do týmu bylo minulý měsíc přesunuto 7 000 zaměstnanců.
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Bloomberg/Getty Images Meta is walking back its stance on forcing engineers to join a task force focused on AI training, according to an internal memo obtained by Business Insider and four people familiar with the matter.
Last month, Meta reassigned 7,000 employees to units such as an Applied AI task force to help train Meta's coming AI models.
On Wednesday, Meta sent a memo about this task force, saying the company will now "defer to each individual's choice." The company sent the email to employees who had been "drafted," as some described its Applied AI task force.
"As I emphasized before, personal agency will remain at the heart of all opportunities at Meta: we will support employees in whatever decisions they make," the memo said.
"Of course, we'd prefer everyone to stay and push to SOTA together, but we defer to each individual's choice," it read, referring to state-of-the-art.
The memo went on to say that people in the unit would have preferential placement in other parts of the company due to staffing shortages.
Meta declined to comment for this story.
Some employees on Blind called the memo an "undraft."
The task force faced significant backlash last month from employees who compared the job to data labeling.
The reversal comes after chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth addressed a broader morale crisis at the company. During an internal "Tuesdays with Boz" session on June 2, Bosworth told employees that morale was "probably one of the worst it's ever been" in Meta's 20-year history, Business Insider previously reported.
In May, Meta laid off 10% of its staff, or 8,000 people.
Have a tip? Contact Charles via email at [email protected] or on Signal and WhatsApp at 628-282-2811. Contact Pranav via encrypted messaging app Signal at +1-408-905-9124, or email him at [email protected] or [email protected]. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.
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Pranav Dixit You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email.
Pranav Dixit is the Meta Correspondent at Business Insider based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He writes about Meta’s products, policies, and internal workings while examining how the company’s decisions shape how billions of people connect and communicate.Previously, Pranav was the India-based technology correspondent for BuzzFeed News, covering the impact of Silicon Valley’s largest companies on the culture, society, and politics of more than a billion people in South Asia. He has also been a senior news editor at Engadget and ran technology coverage at the Hindustan Times, one of India’s largest national newspapers.Pranav’s reporting has shed light on the human consequences of Big Tech’s quest for growth in emerging markets, and sparked widespread conversations about the impact of American technology companies on the Global South. In 2019, he won Syracuse University’s Mirror Award for a boots-on-the-ground feature about how WhatsApp misinformation sparked gruesome lynchings in rural India. He has also reported from Kashmir, a volatile geopolitical hotspot, documenting the world’s longest-running internet shutdown.His work has been widely cited by major national and international publications, and he has been featured on the BBC, Al Jazeera, and podcasts such as Vox Media’s Land of the Giants to discuss his work. He has also spoken in journalism classes including at UC Berkeley’s graduate journalism program. His writing has appeared in The Guardian, Vox, Time, The Information, and Al Jazeera.Pranav moved to the United States in 2021 from New Delhi, India, to be a fellow at Harvard University’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism, where he studied the evolution of the American tech press and ways newsrooms around the world can cover technology and society more effectively.Got a tip about Meta or anything else in Silicon Valley? Contact Pranav via encrypted messaging app Signal (+1408-905-9124), or email him at [email protected] or [email protected]. You can also reach him on WhatsApp at +857-753-3949 or DM him on X (@PranavDixit) or BlueSky (@pranavdixit.bsky.social).Pranav keeps sources anonymous. Please use a non-work device to reach out.Expertise: Meta, Facebook, WhatsApp, Llama, AI, Threads, Instagram, Mark Zuckerberg, social media, platforms, immigration
Charles Rollet You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email.
Charles Rollet is BI's tech correspondent in San Francisco. Prior to joining BI, Charles worked at TechCrunch covering startups and VC. Charles is based in the Bay Area, where he enjoys hiking with his dogs. You can contact Charles securely on Signal at charlesrollet.12 or +1-628-282-2811.
Meta čelí poklesu morálky zaměstnanců na téměř 20leté minimum právě ve chvíli, kdy tlačí na rychlejší vývoj produktů s AI. CTO Andrew Bosworth označil firemní vysvětlení reorganizace za „otřesné".
Meta Platform’s NASDAQ: META last earnings report disappointed investors, leading shares to fall more than 8% to $611 afterward. This drop has so far indicated the start of a larger slide for the stock, as Meta has continued to tumble, recently falling below $575.
Meta Platforms Today
$558.48 -3.72 (-0.66%)
As of 03:17 PM Eastern
This is a fair market value price provided by Massive. Learn more.
52-Week Range$520.26▼
$796.25Dividend Yield0.38%
P/E Ratio20.30
Price Target$840.60
The company’s increased capital expenditure guidance was the main culprit for that initial drop. Additionally, although Meta grew revenue by 33% year over year (YOY), the company did not make any substantial artificial intelligence product announcements, which likely added fuel for the bears.
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Unfortunately, as Meta looks to roll out such offerings, there appears to be significant internal turmoil at the company. Meta's Chief Technology Officer (CTO) recently made stark comments about employee morale, and a top AI executive recently left the firm.
While this may seem innocuous at first, it is important to remember that an investment in any stock is also an implicit bet on the people behind the ticker. Meta’s internal struggles are worth paying attention to, especially given the company’s current position. At the same time, Meta Platforms has made tangible progress with its AI strategy, and the machine won’t stop chugging amid the noise.
Morale Nears Basement Levels as Investors Eye AI Product DevelopmentThe question surrounding Meta in 2026 is whether it can justify hundreds of billions in AI spending based on advertising optimization alone. This creates a need for the company to develop other AI products to drive growth.
Against this backdrop, Meta recently laid off 10% of its employees, aimed at helping it cut down costs as AI spending rides higher. Just as significant was the company’s move to reallocate 10% of its remaining workforce to AI-related positions. This could allow the firm to more quickly develop the alternate AI revenue sources investors are watching for.
In that context, recent comments made by CTO Andrew Bosworth are somewhat concerning. In an internal meeting, Bosworth said employee morale is “maybe not the worst it’s ever been in 20 years here, but it’s probably up there. It’s definitely up there,” per Business Insider. In a staff memo, Bosworth also called Meta’s explanation of its AI restructuring to employees "atrocious."
For a company facing pressure to offset its AI spending with AI growth, employee morale sitting near a 20-year low is unlikely to help its mission. This is further exacerbated by the AI component of the restructuring, which appears to be a significant driver of dissatisfaction. Meta has undergone large-scale layoffs before, but this was the first time AI played a significant role in such a move.
Adding to the list of investor concerns is the departure of Emily Dalton Smith. Meta assigned Smith the task of leading improvements in internal AI usage among its employees. However, after only about two months in this role, Smith is leaving the Magnificent Seven company following a 10-year overall stint. While a single departure does not make or break a company, this suggests that even high-up, long-standing employees are unhappy with Meta’s AI shakeup.
Meta’s AI Successes: Sky-High Advertising Growth & Muse Spark DevelopmentDespite this, it is worth detailing the important successes that Meta has achieved recently. As noted, Meta’s growth hit 33% YOY last quarter. This was the company’s fastest growth rate in four years and a huge acceleration compared to 24% YOY growth in the prior quarter. Excluding pandemic-era spikes in revenue growth seen as people spent more time online, Meta’s growth last quarter was its fastest since 2018.
This is largely a product of Meta's use of AI to improve its ranking and recommendation algorithms. Increasingly, its apps are showing users content and ads they are more likely to engage with, boosting growth.
Furthermore, Meta released its latest Muse Spark model in April. According to AI model evaluation site Artificial Analysis, Muse Spark is by far the company’s most intelligent model. On its Intelligence Index, Muse Spark currently holds a score of 43. This is more than three times higher than Meta’s previous model Llama 4 Maverick, which has a score of 14. However, Muse Spark is still well behind Anthropic and OpenAI’s top models, which have scores of 55 to 60.
Nonetheless, Meta has dramatically improved its top model. Furthermore, Muse Spark’s score is now within spitting distance of Alphabet’s NASDAQ: GOOGL top model, Gemini 3.1 Pro Preview, which has a score of 46. Importantly, the shift came just 10 months after Meta hired Alexandr Wang as its first Chief AI Officer. This demonstrates that Meta can still improve quickly—providing confidence that it can do the same going forward.
Current Price$562.52High Forecast$1,015.00Average Forecast$840.60Low Forecast$700.00Meta Platforms Stock Forecast Details
Meta’s internal turmoil is not exactly what investors want to see as the company aims to provide new revenue-generating AI products. Infighting could delay that development exactly when Meta needs to accelerate it.
Still, the huge improvement in top-line growth and the quick turnaround of Muse Spark are testaments to the company's AI success. While internal issues may slow it down, they are very unlikely to stop Meta from delivering key AI improvements in the long term.
Notably, as Meta shares have slid, Wall Street analysts continue to take a bullish outlook on the stock. The MarketBeat consensus price target of $840 implies upside of about 50%.
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Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives outside court in Los Angeles, California, U.S., February 18, 2026. REUTERS/Mike Blake Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
June 23 (Reuters) - Meta (META.O), opens new tab CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently dispatched a small team at his company to create a smartphone app similar to Polymarket and Kalshi, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing two employees with knowledge of the matter.
The app will probably rely on a video game-like points system instead of users wagering money, though the company has not ruled out betting real money eventually, according to the report.
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The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Reuters could not independently verify the report.
Prediction markets surged in popularity during the 2024 U.S. presidential election and have evolved into an asset class that lets investors wager on a variety of events, from monetary policy to sports tournaments. Trading platforms such as Robinhood (HOOD.O), opens new tab and Interactive Brokers (IBKR.O), opens new tab have rolled out event contracts.
The Times report said the app is internally referred to as "Arena" by Meta that would function independently from its social networking apps including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.
Arena is one of several applications Meta is testing. Another of these standalone apps, Meta Photos, is designed to generate new forms of media, the report said.
Meta aims to grow the app by leveraging its large social networking audiences and directing them toward using it, according to the report. In April, the company reported 3.56 billion daily active people, a metric it uses to track unique users who open any one of its apps in a day.
Prediction markets could balloon to $1 trillion in annual trading volumes by decade-end, Bernstein said in April. But they have also drawn increasing scrutiny as well-timed trades ahead of U.S. President Donald Trump's major policy surprises have potentially led to millions of dollars in profits for unknown traders.
Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Joyjeet Das
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Meta rozšířila Instagram for TV na Samsung Smart TV a testuje nové funkce pro společné sledování. Firma uvedla, že čas strávený u Reels vzrostl o 10 % a video na Facebooku o 8 % globálně.
Key Takeaways Meta expanded Instagram for TV to Samsung Smart TVs, adding to Fire TV and Google TV reach. META is testing channels, Reel casting, Stories on TV and longer-form creator content. Meta said Instagram drove a 10% lift in reel time spent; Facebook video time rose 8% globally. Meta Platforms (META - Free Report) is benefiting from its strategic expansion of Instagram TV (IGTV) reach, leveraging the platform’s growing emphasis on video content to drive higher user engagement. The company’s focus on enhancing video experiences, including improvements to content recommendations and AI-driven personalization, has led to significant increases in time spent on video features such as Reels and IGTV.
Meta Platforms' expanding portfolio has been noteworthy. The company recently expanded Instagram for TV to Samsung Smart TVs in the United States, adding to its availability on Amazon Fire TV and Google TV devices. The company is also testing new features to make shared viewing easier, including interest-based channels, casting Reels from phones, Stories on TV and support for horizontal videos. META is exploring longer-form creator content, episodic series and live broadcasts tailored for the living room experience. The updates aim to make Instagram a more social, communal viewing platform while helping creators reach audiences on larger screens.
Meta Platforms' AI advancements facilitate the auto-translation and dubbing of videos, making IGTV content accessible to a broader, global audience. Over half a billion users on both Facebook and Instagram now watch AI-translated videos weekly. This broadening of reach increases the potential audience for IGTV creators and enhances the platform’s appeal to advertisers seeking to target diverse demographics with localized content. The company continues to see improvements on Instagram, which have driven a 10% lift in reel time spent, while Facebook saw an 8% increase in total video time globally, the largest quarter-over-quarter gain in four years.
Meta Platform’s strong portfolio is fueling robust financial results and is expected to benefit the company’s top-line growth. For the second quarter of 2026, the company expects total revenues between $58 billion and $61 billion.
META Faces Stiff CompetitionMeta Platforms is facing stiff competition from competitors like Snap (SNAP - Free Report) and Reddit (RDDT - Free Report) . Both Snap and Reddit are expanding their portfolio to compete in the rapidly growing digital ad market.
Reddit is continuing to grow as engagement rises and monetization gets better through a stronger performance ad stack. The company is benefiting from an increase in daily active users and weekly active users, along with a higher average revenue per user and more advertisers using tools like Reddit Max, Dynamic Product Ads and improved measurement. AI-led features, including translation and better discovery, are helping broaden the user base and deepen intent-driven use cases, while content licensing adds diversification.
Snapchat has reached 956 million monthly active users and 483 million daily active users in the first quarter of 2026, driven by continued adoption of Augmented Reality Lenses, Spotlight and AI-powered features. Key growth drivers include its AI-powered automation solutions, AI Sponsored Snaps, Sponsored Snaps, Promoted Places, Dynamic Product Ads and subscription offerings including Snapchat+, Memories Storage and Lens+.
META’s Share Price Performance, Valuation, and EstimatesMETA’s shares have lost 14.6% in the year-to-date period, underperforming the broader Zacks Computer & Technology sector’s return of 20%.
META Stock's Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
META shares are overvalued, with a forward 12-month Price/Sales of 5.15X compared with the Internet - Software’s 3.66X. META has a Value Score of C.
META's Valuation
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 earnings is pegged at $33.01 per share, which has increased by a penny over the past 30 days. This suggests 40.53% year-over-year growth.
Meta Platforms currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
EU podle Bloombergu zpřísňuje vyšetřování společnosti Meta kvůli tomu, že Facebook a Instagram mají být navržené tak, aby děti „připoutaly“ k používání. Hrozí jí pokuta až 6 % globálních tržeb.
The European Union is reportedly escalating a probe into Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta over allegations that its social media apps are intentionally designed to get kids hooked.
The European Commission, the EU’s competition watchdog, is close to issuing its preliminary findings – including that Facebook and Instagram are built with addictive features, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
EU officials have yet to determine exactly when they’ll announce the findings, the report said.
Meta has accused the EU of targeting American firms with major fines. Bloomberg via Getty Images The investigation was first announced in May 2024 and focused on Meta’s potential violations of the EU’s Digital Services Act – which requires Big Tech firms to police content on their platforms.
Meta did not immediately return a request for comment.
EU officials previously said they were concerned that Facebook and Instagram “may stimulate behavioral addictions in children” as well as “rabbit-hole effects” – where kids keep using the apps in a way that causes their physical and mental health to suffer.
The commission had also expressed concern about the effectiveness of Meta’s age verification practices.
The issuing of preliminary findings are a crucial step in the European Commission’s investigation process. Meta will have an opportunity to propose remedies that address the bloc’s concerns.
Under the DSA, companies can be fined as much as 6% of their global sales if they are unable to satisfy regulators.
Meta faces an escalating probe in the EU. wichayada – stock.adobe.com Based on Meta’s fiscal 2025 revenue, that would mean a potential fine of about $12 billion – though the EU’s penalties to date in similar cases have come in far below that level.
Any severe crackdown on Meta could escalate tensions between the European Union and the Trump administration, which has repeatedly criticized EU officials for what it says are discriminary actions against US tech firms.
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The EU’s fines have become a sticking point in trade talks between the two sides.
Zuckerberg himself has described the EU’s fines as “almost like a tariff” that have become “sort of like an EU-wide policy for how they want to deal with American tech.”
Separately, Meta is facing a wave of more than 2,000 lawsuits in the US over allegations that its app have fueled social media addiction and online harm among kids.
In March, Meta lost a pair of historic court cases – one in New Mexico and another in Los Angeles – in what critics described as a “Big Tobacco moment” for the tech industry.
Trumpova administrativa tlačí Meta, aby dobrovolně podrobila své AI modely vládní kontrole kvůli rostoucím bezpečnostním obavám. Meta je podle NYT jediným velkým americkým vývojářem AI bez takové dohody.
People walk behind a logo of Meta Platforms company, during a conference in Mumbai, India, September 20, 2023. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
June 23 (Reuters) - The Trump administration is pressing Meta (META.O), opens new tab to submit its AI models for voluntary review, which would allow the government to evaluate their abilities and vulnerabilities, the New York Times reported on Tuesday, citing four people familiar with the confidential request.
The request was made in emails with the social media giant, the report said, as the administration steps up oversight of the AI industry.
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The Facebook parent, which launched the Muse Spark AI model in April, is the only major U.S. developer of AI technology that has not reached an agreement to voluntarily share its models with the federal government for review, according to the report.
"We share the administration's goal of advancing U.S. leadership on robust and secure frontier AI. While we are working through the details, we hope to sign the agreement soon," Meta told Reuters in an emailed response.
The U.S. Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Earlier this month, the U.S. government ordered Anthropic to suspend access to its most advanced AI models for foreign nationals, citing national security concerns.
OpenAI and Anthropic had already been working with the U.S. government to test unreleased AI models, while Google DeepMind (GOOGL.O), opens new tab, Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab and xAI agreed in May to provide the government early access to new models for national-security evaluations.
Concern is growing in Washington over the national security risks posed by powerful AI systems. By securing early access to frontier models, U.S. officials are aiming to identify threats ranging from cyberattacks to military misuse before the tools are widely deployed.
On June 2, President Donald Trump signed an executive order establishing a voluntary framework for AI developers to offer "covered frontier models" to the U.S. government for up to 30 days before releasing them to trusted partners.
Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed and Vijay Kishore
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
