Mark Zuckerberg Said Meta's AI Bets "Haven't Come to Fruition Yet" as Shares Fell 5%

Meta Platforms (NASDAQ: META) is one of the big spenders in the artificial intelligence (AI) race. Its capital expenditures in 2026 will total between $125 billion and $145 billion. At the midpoint, that estimate would be 88% higher than last year's figure.

However, investors have reason to be skeptical that this will result in a meaningful payoff.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who currently has a net worth of $231 billion, admitted that the company's AI bets "haven't come to fruition yet." He said that during an internal town hall on July 2, Reuters reported.

The social media stock dipped 5% that day, although it's up 19% in the month of July (as of July 10).

Image source: The Motley Fool.

Not living up to the hype

Meta has been one of the fastest companies to commit fully to AI. Earlier this year, the business laid off 8,000 employees, translating to 10% of its workforce. It also moved 7,000 people into different AI roles. One of the goals was to develop and implement AI agents throughout the organization, an objective that so far has failed to live up to expectations.

Zuckerberg said notable progress should be made in the coming months. But based on the immediate negative share-price reaction, investors were less enthusiastic.

The slow AI headway is giving shareholders flashbacks to late 2021, when the business changed its name from Facebook to Meta Platforms. The company believed that the metaverse would replace mobile internet as the next major computing platform, a strategic pivot that Meta has since scaled back.

Investors haven't been pleased with Reality Labs' financial performance. This segment of Meta posted a cumulative operating loss of $77 billion during the five-year period from the start of 2021 through 2025. But this dollar figure is peanuts compared to the money being allocated to AI.

Zuck's gamble makes sense

With a world-class advertising platform and 3.56 billion daily active users across its family of apps, Meta aims to leverage AI not only to boost engagement and drive higher ad revenue, but to also bring personal superintelligence to everyone around the world. This gives the business a different position than its hyperscaler peers, which largely sell AI and other computing capabilities to enterprise clients.

Meta's huge AI spending makes sense, since the company wants to lead the AI revolution from an individual's perspective. However, Zuckerberg's comments about AI progress being slow have three implications for the broader AI secular trend.

It's almost impossible to precisely measure early results from AI implementation, even for a dominant technology business. Worries about AI agents replacing jobs appear to be overblown right now. And no one has any idea what the ultimate payoff will be from the unprecedented AI spending taking place.

Neil Patel has 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.