Meta Q4 beat: Zuckerberg says AI will reshape media consumption and advertising in 2026

New Delhi: Meta Platforms posted a strong earnings beat for the fourth quarter of 2025, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg signalling that artificial intelligence will fundamentally change how people consume media and how advertisers reach them across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger over the next year.

On January 28, 2026, Meta reported revenue of $59.9 billion, up 24% year-on-year, driven largely by growth in advertising across its family of apps. Earnings per share came in at $8.88, comfortably ahead of market expectations.

Advertising continued to be Meta’s core growth engine, accounting for nearly 97% of total revenue. Ad income rose on the back of higher impressions and improved ad pricing, supported by AI-driven recommendation systems that are increasing user engagement across feeds, video and messaging surfaces.

During the earnings call, Zuckerberg said 2026 would mark a sharp acceleration in how AI shapes content discovery and interaction, moving beyond traditional recommendation engines to more personalised, interactive and AI-generated media experiences. He described AI as shifting platforms from passive content consumption to systems that increasingly anticipate user intent.

“AI is starting to meaningfully change how people interact with content,” Zuckerberg said, adding that future feeds would be built around individual context, interests and goals rather than static formats.

“I don’t think video is the ultimate kind of final format,” Zuckerberg said. “We’re going to get more formats that are more interactive and immersive, and you’re going to get them in your feeds. You can imagine being able to easily, through a prompt, create a world or create a game and be able to share that. There’s definitely a version of the future where you see a video that you can tap on and jump into.”

Zuckerberg said this evolution will gradually change how value is distributed within feeds, as AI begins to decide not just what content is shown but how it is assembled and presented in real time. This, he noted, will favour relevance and usefulness over format-led engagement, with AI determining whether text, video, creators, or generated content best serves a user’s intent at a given moment.

For Meta’s advertising business, this shift could expand monetisation opportunities by embedding ads more naturally within discovery and interaction flows. As feeds become more adaptive and intent-driven, advertisers may increasingly reach users at decision points rather than relying solely on broad interest targeting, potentially improving ad efficiency across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp while increasing overall inventory.

For advertisers, this shift is already translating into stronger performance across Meta’s platforms. The company said AI-powered ad tools, particularly in video, creative optimisation and targeting, are improving conversion efficiency, encouraging higher advertiser spending despite macroeconomic uncertainty.

Meta’s operating income for the quarter stood at $24.7 billion, even as total costs and expenses rose 40% year-on-year, reflecting heavy investment in AI infrastructure, data centres and computing capacity.

Zuckerberg acknowledged that 2025 was a “foundational” year for rebuilding Meta’s AI capabilities, with 2026 expected to see broader deployment of AI agents: autonomous systems designed to assist users with tasks such as content creation, shopping and messaging-based commerce.

He said AI agents would also change how businesses operate on Meta’s platforms, enabling new ad formats and commerce use cases, particularly within WhatsApp and Instagram, where messaging and discovery are increasingly converging.

Zuckerberg said AI agents will become deeply integrated into messaging, helping businesses engage users, drive discovery and facilitate transactions, particularly on WhatsApp and Instagram, where “messaging, content and commerce are coming together.”

While Meta’s advertising business delivered robust growth, losses at Reality Labs continued to weigh on margins. The unit, which houses Meta’s AR and VR efforts, reported a $6.02 billion loss for the quarter and $19.19 billion for the full year, as the company continues to invest in smart glasses and immersive hardware.

Instagram remained a key growth driver, particularly through Reels and video-led ad formats, where engagement gains translated into higher advertiser demand. Meta has steadily increased monetisation efficiency in short-form video, narrowing the revenue gap with traditional feed ads as AI improves recommendation quality and ad relevance.

WhatsApp, while still at an earlier stage of monetisation, is emerging as a strategic growth lever for advertising-linked commerce. Business messaging, click-to-WhatsApp ads and catalogue-based interactions are seeing increased adoption, especially among small and mid-sized advertisers, as brands use messaging to move users from discovery to transaction within Meta’s ecosystem.

Meta said advertising performance also benefited from continued growth in global active users and time spent across its apps, giving marketers access to incremental reach at scale. With AI expected to further increase engagement and content consumption in 2026, Meta indicated that advertising would remain its primary revenue engine even as it invests heavily in AI infrastructure and new product formats.

Zuckerberg, however, reiterated that AI-enabled glasses would become a major computing platform over time, noting that sales of Meta’s smart glasses tripled in 2025.

Looking ahead, Meta guided for significantly higher spending in 2026, with total expenses expected to rise sharply as the company expands AI infrastructure and model training. The company indicated that 2026 costs could reach $162–169 billion, largely driven by AI-related investments.

As Zuckerberg summed up, AI is no longer a side bet for Meta. It is increasingly central to how users consume media and how the company monetises attention at scale.