By Clare Duffy, CNN
New York (CNN) — If Meta traders had considerations in regards to the firm’s large spending on synthetic intelligence infrastructure and expertise — and its formidable “superintelligence” aim — they’re prone to be assuaged by its blockbuster earnings report on Wednesday. The outcomes, as one analyst put it, signifies that “AI is becoming a real revenue driver, not just hype.”
Meta on Wednesday posted earnings of $7.14 per share on $47.5 billion in income from the quarter ended June 30. Earnings per share have been up 38% from the year-ago interval and nicely above the $5.88 that Wall Avenue analysts had anticipated.
It additionally projected income from the present quarter can be between $47.5 billion and $50.5 billion, additionally forward of analysts’ expectations.
The robust outcomes despatched Meta shares up greater than 9% in after-hours buying and selling. The corporate’s inventory has risen 16% for the reason that begin of this 12 months.
“Meta’s blowout earnings and raised guidance highlight how AI is becoming a real revenue driver, not just hype,” Investing.com Senior Analyst Jesse Cohen stated in an announcement. “The company’s continued heavy investment in AI infrastructure signals it’s playing the long game.”
The report got here after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out his strategy to AI “superintelligence” in a video and weblog publish on Wednesday morning. He desires everybody to have entry to their very own private AI superintelligence, he stated within the weblog publish, making folks extra productive to allow them to spend “more time creating and connecting.”
“Our business continues to perform very well, which enables us to invest heavily in our AI efforts,” Meta stated in a name with analysts Wednesday night, including that the corporate’s efficiency within the quarter could possibly be attributed to AI bettering its core advert enterprise.
Meta has been shelling out massive bucks to recruit high AI expertise away from rivals similar to OpenAI, Google and Apple for its new Meta Superintelligence Labs group. The corporate can be spending a whole lot of billions of {dollars} to construct large AI knowledge facilities.
On Friday, Zuckerberg introduced that Shengjia Zhao, one of many co-creators of ChatGPT who Meta employed away from OpenAI a number of weeks in the past, would be the group’s chief scientist.
Meta Chief Monetary Officer Susan Li stated hiring in “high priority” areas similar to AI is anticipated to develop the corporate’s complete employees all through this 12 months and subsequent. She added that elevated compensation due to Meta’s investments in high AI abilities can be its second largest driver of bills progress subsequent 12 months.
Meta is in league with tech giants similar to OpenAI, Google and Anthropic which are all racing towards superintelligence, the theoretical level at which AI turns into smarter than all people in any respect data work. It’s believed that if that milestone is reached, it may dramatically reshape the economic system and the way in which folks work, probably creating vital new enterprise alternatives for the businesses that may present the know-how.
And the stakes could also be particularly excessive for Zuckerberg, who desires Meta to be greater than only a social media firm and has refocused it on AI after an unsuccessful pivot to the metaverse. The corporate is beneath strain to ship on the billions it’s invested in knowledge facilities and chips, and it additionally has a rising good glasses enterprise that will depend on the success of its AI efforts. And the corporate is coming from considerably behind rivals, after reported delays in releasing the most important model of its new Llama 4 AI mannequin.
Zuckerberg stated Wednesday morning that he believes good glasses would be the “main computing device” for the AI period.
Regardless of its aggressive spending, Meta on Wednesday stated its capital expenditures in the course of the second quarter have been $17 billion, almost consistent with Wall Avenue’s estimate of $16.48 billion. And it narrowed — however didn’t elevate — its full-year capital expenditure steerage, giving traders a extra exact view of its spending plan.
Initially Revealed: August 13, 2025 at 2:03 PM PDT
