\n<\/p>\n
Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is trying to sell investors on his prediction for the future \u2014 one where billions of people will have their own personal AI agents in the next five years. (Let\u2019s hope that future also comes with data centers efficient enough to power all those agents \u2014 without triggering a fresh wave of climate disasters.)<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that it\u2019s extremely unlikely if you look out five years from now, for example \u2014 whatever period of time you want \u2014 that you don\u2019t have billions of people with a personal agent that understands your goals and that is just working on your behalf 24\/7 to achieve your goals in whatever the domain is that you care about,\u201d Zuckerberg said on Wednesday\u2019s quarterly earnings call with investors.<\/p>\n
He added that he could see people using these agents to help them with their finances, health, interpersonal relationships, and household management.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs we move toward a future where we\u2019re all interacting with multiple agents, I think that WhatsApp and our other messaging surfaces are going to become increasingly important,\u201d he said, noting that WhatsApp is already the leading platform where users interact with Meta AI.<\/p>\n
Meta is not alone in setting high expectations for AI systems that can act on a person\u2019s behalf rather than just answer questions. Google emphasized custom AI agents<\/a> as a key new feature in its Search overhaul<\/a>, which sparked outcry from users who felt bogged down by the constant onslaught of AI results on Google. Meanwhile, subscriptions to Anthropic\u2019s Claude have skyrocketed<\/a> as engineers fawn over the agentic coding assistant Claude Code.<\/p>\n Compared to its competitors, however, Meta may not enjoy as much confidence from investors as it continues dumping cash into innovative projects that may or may not pan out \u2014 Meta\u2019s stock dropped almost 10% after posting this quarter\u2019s earnings. Meta\u2019s Reality Labs, the organization responsible for its AR glasses, VR headsets, and related software, lost around $4.6 billion<\/a> this quarter, roughly in line with the losses the division has posted each quarter<\/a> since 2021. That\u2019s a running total now of around $88 billion.<\/p>\n Meta\u2019s AI spending is likely to climb even higher, which is more of a concern at this juncture. The company reported free cash flow of $784 million this quarter, down from $8.55 billion the same quarter last year. That\u2019s a 91% drop year over year, exacerbated by the company\u2019s investments in AI infrastructure. This week, Meta and BlackRock announced a partnership to build a $14 billion data center<\/a> in El Paso, Texas.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe that there will continue to be a significantly higher margin on selling intelligence rather than selling compute directly, but we think that there\u2019s a big opportunity, obviously, to sell compute as well,\u201d Zuckerberg said. <\/p>\n Ultimately, he believes that the personal agents that Meta is developing will be \u201cthe foundation for our next wave of products and revenue lines in the months and years ahead.\u201d <\/p>\n So far, Meta\u2019s business agents, rolled out globally on WhatsApp and Messenger this quarter, have been adopted by more than one million businesses. It may be harder to get people to adopt consumer AI agents, but the road to \u201cbillions\u201d has to start somewhere \u2014 the company can\u2019t get there on enterprise agents<\/a> alone.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission<\/a>. This doesn\u2019t affect our editorial independence.<\/em><\/p>\n