Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has told investors that he expects billions of people to have personal AI agents working on their behalf around the clock within five years, as he attempts to justify the company’s escalating AI spending amid signs of investor unease.
“I think it’s extremely unlikely if you look out five years from now that you don’t 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,” Zuckerberg said during Meta’s second-quarter earnings call.
He said he could see people using such agents to help with finances, health, interpersonal relationships, and household management, adding that WhatsApp, already the leading platform where users interact with Meta AI, would become increasingly central to the company’s agent strategy.
Meta’s stock fell nearly 10% following the earnings release. Reality Labs, the division responsible for AR glasses and VR headsets, lost approximately $4.6 billion in the quarter, part of a running total of around $88 billion in losses since 2021. Free cash flow dropped 91% year-on-year to $784 million, driven by AI infrastructure investment.
Last week Meta and BlackRock announced a partnership to build a $14 billion data centre in El Paso, Texas. Meta’s business AI agents, rolled out globally on WhatsApp and Messenger in the quarter, have been adopted by more than one million businesses.
