Zuckerberg Bets on Artificial Intelligence as Meta's New Driving Force

Mark Zuckerberg firmly sets his sights on the future and announces the next big goal for his corporation Meta: Dominance in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). The founder aims to achieve this with the company’s own AI assistant "Meta AI," which is intended to be not only high quality but also globally leading in terms of usage. The visionary CEO is preparing shareholders for the fact that this investment in software and technology could be not only costly but also potentially take years before it pays off financially. Investors on Wall Street, however, were surprised and unsettled by these future plans, resulting in a 15 percent plunge in Meta's stock price. The announcement comes after an extensive rebranding phase that began two years earlier with the renaming of Facebook to Meta, to highlight the development of the unprofitable "Metaverse." Now they face another potential upheaval that stirs up new unease. In a conference call with analysts, Zuckerberg emphasized that the company's concept of creating popular services first and then tackling monetization had proven successful in the past. He sees new business opportunities especially in the interaction between businesses and customers over Meta’s platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. He also outlined the vision of "AI agents" that could go far beyond the capabilities of today's chatbots and autonomously handle complex tasks. With these ambitious plans, Meta enters into a more direct competition with AI heavyweights like OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. Nonetheless, Meta has the strategic advantage of a user base of 3.24 billion people who use at least one of the company's apps daily. Meta has already started the implementation of the AI assistant with the introduction of activation buttons in its own apps in the USA and other countries. Particular expectations are placed on the smart glasses developed with Ray-Ban, which are equipped with a camera, microphone, and speakers, capable of answering questions about visual and auditory impressions thanks to AI. The smart glasses are a product of Reality Labs, which is also responsible for the "Metaverse" and VR equipment. Despite a slight decline in the most recent quarter, this business segment remains heavily in deficit, with operating losses of $3.85 billion. Zuckerberg sees the necessity to more clearly demonstrate the value contribution of Reality Labs, especially since the losses have long drawn criticism. Meanwhile, Meta's advertising business shows a positive trend once again after a brief dip, with an increase in advertising revenue and a doubling of profit. Quarterly revenue rose by 27 percent to $36.45 billion. Future forecasts, however, remain below expectations, and the projected expenses for this year are being adjusted upwards due to AI investments.