Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said personal AI agents that work continuously for users are likely to become common within the next few years, as the company positions that technology at the centre of its future products and revenue.

Speaking during Meta’s latest earnings call, Zuckerberg said an AI agent goes beyond a chatbot because it can carry out tasks independently and continue working in the background even when the user is not actively engaged. “I think that it’s extremely unlikely if you look out five years from now, for example – whatever period of time you want – 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.

Cash flow drops as AI spending rises

Meta’s latest earnings report showed free cash flow in the second quarter fell 91% to $784 million from $8.55 billion a year earlier, its lowest level since 2022, as the company continued to spend heavily on AI. Meta also raised the lower end of its 2026 capital expenditure forecast to $130 billion from $125 billion. Its shares fell about 10 per cent after the results.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, also reported negative free cash flow of $5.9 billion in the second quarter, the first such instance in 22 years. Zuckerberg said Meta could rent out computing capacity to customers running AI models, but added that selling intelligence directly offered significantly higher margins than selling compute. Reports said Meta plans to double computing power to 7 gigawatts this year and 14 gigawatts next year, with 32 data centres either operational or under construction.

Meta has also released the Muse family of AI models, including Muse Spark 1.1 and Muse Image, which were developed in less than a year by Meta Superintelligence Labs. Zuckerberg said that as people move towards using multiple agents, WhatsApp and Meta’s other messaging platforms would become increasingly important. He said WhatsApp was the largest platform for Meta AI, while Instagram was expected to receive more features soon.

Outside its AI infrastructure push, Meta’s Reality Labs unit posted a loss of about $4.6 billion in the quarter and has recorded more than $80 billion in operating losses since 2021. Meta also paid severance expenses after cutting around 8,000 employees in May, while it continued to expand its AI investments amid pressure on cash flow.

Source: Business Today

--Agencies