Meta Stock Slips After Zuckerberg Admits AI Progress Has Been Slower Than Expected

Artificial intelligence has been the leading story of Meta Platforms (META), with Meta receiving praise (and critique) from the market for allocating up to $145 billion in capital expenditures to invest in building AI infrastructure. That story received new fodder for the bears last week when CEO Mark Zuckerberg commented during an internal town hall that AI agent development of Meta hasn't been moving "in the way we expected" over the past four months.

That comment came just a few days after the news that Meta intends to rent extra AI computing capacity through the cloud business, raising questions on whether AI infrastructure investments are outpacing the demand. Nevertheless, the company keeps generating impressive cash flow through its highly profitable advertising business, thus having much more financial flexibility compared to most of its rivals focused on developing AI infrastructure.