shares plunged 14% in pre-market trading on Thursday as the social media firm’s comments around prolonged spending on artificial intelligence unnerved investors.
Analysts at Baird had a similar take, saying: “Meta’s report reminds us that sustaining growth through innovation requires investment cycles; and in our view, it would be foolish for … to ignore meaningful opportunities created by technology shifts for the sake of shorter-term financial outcomes.” CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts on a conference call that the focus on AI would “grow our investment envelope meaningfully before we make much revenue from some of these new products”.