Zuckerberg Sells The AI Dream
Mark Zuckerberg knew just what to say to placate investors concerned about the temporal gap between AI capex and the payoff from those investments.
AI, Zuckerberg said Wednesday evening on Meta's call, will ultimately play some role in "almost every product that we have." The technology's going to "change all these different things over multiple time horizons." It's "super exciting," he effused.
That didn't answer the most pressing questions regarding the time line on revenue generation from t
The Silicon Valley tech guys have always operated that way. They create something they believe will be wonderful, though they can’t tell you exactly how it will payoff. It’s how those businesses live. The good ones don’t know how to stop thinking big and often outside the box.
Investors haven’t given EMTA much AI halo, but actually META has more to gain from AI than any “AI user” company I know of (distinguishing from the “AI supplier” names), because they can provide AI applications their users will actually want.
AI is good at creating images, generating text, and having conversations, and that is what people do on social media. So META is using AI to let users create fun or flattering AI images of themselves, let creators have “create AI agents that can channel them to chat with their community”, and let “every business … have an AI agent that their customers can interact with”. Creepy, sure, but if social media is a nail, AI is a perfect hammer.
META’s profiling/algorithm engine has by now far surpassed its effectiveness before the AAPL tracking block. No-one talks about Facebook Marketplace, but it is so much better than Craigslist (could someday challenge EBAY) that people have re-engaged with FB just for that. Talking to young adults, I believe META’s claim that it is regaining traction with that demographic. Threads has reached critical mass. I assume 3Q will see an election surge in ads/engagement.
That said, it was basically a beat (report) and blah (guide) quarter, which only looked good relative to the lowered expectations created by GOOG and MSFT, and at this valuation, I wonder how what investors will think about a meet and blah 3Q.
Who is EMTA? Must be META. Duh.
What are the chances he changes the company name again to say, Meta AI, only to watch no one want to use his AI any more than they want to use his Metaverse?
You have to admit, it would be funny!
AI is still mostly projection. Unlike blockchain, which as a tool and not a currency is still trying to find its raison d’etre, I believe AI has lots of utility, but mostly as dreams and not profits so far, except for the AI infrastructure guys.
You’ll like this link then
https://www.upwork.com/research/ai-enhanced-work-models
“Nearly half (47%) of workers using AI say they have no idea how to achieve the productivity gains their employers expect. Over three in four (77%) say AI tools have decreased their productivity and added to their workload in at least one way. For example, survey respondents reported that they’re spending more time reviewing or moderating AI-generated content (39%), invest more time learning to use these tools (23%), and are now being asked to do more work (21%). Forty percent of employees feel their company is asking too much of them when it comes to AI.”
That said, the tools should get better.