Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms, expressed confidence in the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities as Meta continues to make significant investments in virtual reality (XR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies that support AI and the metaverse.
During a conference call on July 31 following Meta’s Q2 earnings announcement, Zuckerberg stated, “We had a strong quarter, and Meta AI is on track to be the most used AI assistant in the world by the end of the year.”
He also mentioned that they have launched the latest open-source AI model, demonstrating his optimism about Meta AI’s potential. Last week, Meta unveiled its new large language model, Llama 3.1, which the company asserts outperforms OpenAI’s GPT-4 in “Massive Multitask Language Understanding (MMLU).”
Zuckerberg highlighted that the smart glasses “Ray-Ban Meta AI Glasses” have received positive feedback. He also mentioned the strong growth of Meta’s social media apps—Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp—which now have over 3.27 billion daily active users. Additionally, Threads, a competitor to Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter), has seen its daily active users exceed 150 million and are approaching 200 million.
Despite these positive developments, the outlook for Meta’s AI division has its challenges.
The Reality Labs division of Meta, Zuckerberg’s key focus, has reported significant operating losses, reaching $4.5 billion, as the company invests heavily in AI-related software and hardware. Despite these financial setbacks, Meta plans to ramp up its investments in AI, projecting that spending on AI infrastructure could increase to $10 billion this year.
On the same day as these announcements, Meta released its Q2 earnings, which exceeded market expectations, a vital factor in maintaining its investment momentum. The company’s revenue, net income, and earnings per share (EPS) all surpassed Wall Street forecasts. Specifically, Meta’s revenue climbed to $39.07 billion, marking a 22% increase year over year and the fourth consecutive quarter of revenue growth above 20%. Net income also significantly rose, surging 73% from the previous year to $13.47 billion, with an EPS of $5.16.
