Prediction: Meta's AI Spending Will Pay Off Bigger Than Wall Street Expects

Shares of social media giant Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) have fallen about 28% from their 52-week high near $796, trading about $577 as of this writing. The slide has come even as the company's core advertising business grows at its fastest pace in years.

So what's bothering investors?

Spending. Meta now plans to spend between $125 billion and $145 billion on capital expenditures in 2026, up from about $72 billion last year. Most of it is going toward the computing power behind artificial intelligence (AI), and it has drawn the same doubt circling Meta's megacap peers: whether all that money will ever earn its keep.

It's a fair question. And the clearest place to look for an answer is the very ad business that's funding it.

Image source: Getty Images.

A bigger bill

When Meta reported first-quarter results in late April, it raised its 2026 capital expenditures forecast to a range of $125 billion to $145 billion, up from a prior range of $115 billion to $135 billion. Set against the $72 billion the company spent in 2025, this year's plan amounts to a near-doubling. Shares fell about 7% on the news.

"Most of that is due to higher component costs, particularly memory pricing," Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said of the increase on the company's first-quarter earnings call. In other words, pricier chips and memory -- not a far bigger build-out -- explain much of the step-up.

The deeper worry is what the spending does to profits. As today's outlays convert into depreciation over the next few years, they will press on margins. Meta's first-quarter operating margin held at 41%, but the heaviest depreciation is still to come.

The spending also sits atop an expensive side venture in reality labs -- the division behind Meta's virtual-reality headsets and AI glasses, which lost about $4 billion in the quarter. And new cloud and infrastructure deals added $107 billion to the company's future contractual commitments during the period.

What the ad business is already showing

And the same investment drawing criticism is already lifting the two things that drive Meta's revenue: how much people use its apps, and how much advertisers will pay to reach them.

On engagement, ranking improvements lifted time spent on Instagram Reels 10% in the first quarter, while total video time on Facebook rose more than 8% globally -- its biggest quarterly gain in four years. AI is also surfacing fresher posts, with same-day content now making up more than 30% of recommended Reels on both apps -- double the level of a year ago.

All of that improving engagement, of course, shows up in advertising. Meta served 19% more ad impressions in the quarter, and the average price per ad rose 12% -- double the 6% increase from just one quarter earlier.

Meta's newer ad-ranking models expanded to cover off-site conversions during the period, nudging conversion rates higher across Facebook and Instagram, while the annual revenue run rate of its value optimization suite (a set of AI-driven advertising tools for marketers to optimize their ad campaigns) has more than doubled to over $20 billion.

"[W]e are seeing an increasing return on the amount that we can improve engagement for people and value for advertisers," Zuckerberg said during Meta's earnings call.

Even after $19.8 billion of capital expenditures in the first quarter, Meta still generated $12.4 billion in free cash flow.

But what about Meta stock's valuation?

After the sell-off, Meta trades at about 21 times earnings -- an undemanding multiple for a business growing revenue 33% and reinvesting at this scale. The market, in effect, is already pricing in disappointment with the return on invested capital for at least a portion of its investments.

Sure, the spending could prove to be too aggressive in hindsight. And Meta's reality labs segment remains a costly drag with no clear end date. But this isn't the first time Meta has made bold investments in its future. Sure, the investments may be unprecedented in size, but Meta has historically consistently found a way to compound shareholder value over the long haul. And the business is firing on all cylinders in the meantime. If revenue continues to grow rapidly, the payoff from this investment may make today's stock price look cheap in hindsight.

Daniel Sparks and his clients have no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.