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Today, the Meta group is one of the leaders in the generative AI sector. He developed a model called Llama, the third version of which has just been presented. And after making its debut in the United States, the Meta AI assistant, an equivalent of ChatGPT, is gradually being deployed on the group's products and applications in other countries (but not yet in France).
But in reality, this is only the beginning, since to establish itself in AI, Meta intends to invest massively in this sector in 2024 and 2025. No precise amount has been mentioned. However, during the presentation of its latest financial results, Meta was clear on this subject: it will continue to invest in AI, and massively.
“We expect our capital expenditures for the full year 2024 to be between $35 billion and $40 billion, increasing by compared to our previous range of $30 billion to $37 billion, as we continue to accelerate our infrastructure investments to support our artificial intelligence (AI) roadmap,” the statement said. band. And if it does not make forecasts for 2025, it indicates that next year, it will continue to invest “aggressively” in artificial intelligence.
Mark Zuckerberg in no rush to monetize
And while investments will increase, growth forecasts for the second quarter are below analysts' expectations. As a result, the value of Meta shares was falling after the presentation of the results. But for Mark Zuckerberg, AI is a bet on the future.
“Historically, investing to create these new large-scale experiments in our applications has been a very good long-term investment for us and for the investors who have stayed with us and the first signs are quite positive here too”, a declared the boss of Meta, according to CNBC. “But building world-class AI will also be a larger undertaking than the other experiments we've added to our applications and will likely take several years.”
The metaverse continues to lose money
And if Facebook's parent company is today Now focused on artificial intelligence, it also continues to develop its virtual reality and augmented reality products. In the first quarter, the Reality Labs division generated revenue of $440 million, but losses were $3.85 billion. According to CNBC, the cumulative losses of this Meta division since the end of 2020 now amount to $45 billion.
Recently, this division made a big announcement for the mixed reality sector. Like Android on smartphones, the Meta Horizon OS operating system can now be used by other manufacturers. And while Apple's Vision Pro is a closed system, the Meta platform will accept third-party application stores.
For Meta, investments in AI , and those in the metaverse are complementary. Indeed, artificial intelligence could be used to improve the experience of Reality Labs products.
Profits have doubled
In any case, if the media has mainly focused on investments in AI, it is important to point out that today, Meta has definitely come out of the bad patch it went through in 2022. Indeed, in the first quarter of 2024, the company saw its profit double ($12.4 billion). As for revenues, they jumped 27%, to reach $36.5 billion.
- Meta is already one of the leaders in artificial intelligence, thanks to its Llama models and its Meta AI assistant which is gradually being deployed around the world
- But during the presentation of its first quarter results, the group made it clear that this is only the beginning
- Meta will invest aggressively to continue to develop his AI
- Mark Zuckerberg clarified that this is a long-term bet
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