Meta’s second quarter earnings report continues to show that generative AI may take a long time to generate significant profits. However, Meta already makes a lot of money – $39 billion in revenue and $13.5 billion in profit last quarter, up 22% and 73%, respectively.
Meta’s ability to invest heavily in AI comes from its massive scale and financial resources. Mark Zuckerberg emphasized that the company is building capacity for future returns, rather than waiting until it’s too late. He also reiterated that Meta’s AI assistant will be the most used in the world by the end of the year.
While generative AI features may increase user engagement, Zuckerberg believes the real revenue will come from business use cases, such as AI-created ads and custom AI agents for customer service on WhatsApp.
Some other notable points:
* Meta is preparing to train Llama 4, which will require significantly more compute power than its predecessor.
* Zuckerberg expressed excitement about building future generations of AI glasses after the success of the latest Meta Ray-Bans.
* Sales of Quest 3 are exceeding expectations, and a cheaper version may be announced at the company’s Connect conference in September.
* Threads is expected to reach 200 million monthly users soon, up from 175 million in July.
* Facebook usage among young adults is growing again, despite public perceptions that the app is no longer popular.
Source: https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/31/24210786/meta-earnings-q2-2024-ai-llama-zuckerberg