Meta is preparing to make one of the largest investments ever in AI, with a plan to spend up to 135 billion USD this year.
This figure is almost double the 72 billion USD that the company spent on AI projects and infrastructure last year, reflecting CEO Mark Zuckerberg's strong belief that AI will reshape how people consume media content.
This information was announced just weeks after Meta fired about 1,000 employees at Reality Labs, the department in charge of virtual reality products such as Quest headphones and the Horizon Worlds platform.
In a recent revenue report meeting, Zuckerberg emphasized that AI will become the next major media format, after text, images and videos.
According to him, the development of AI will help news bulletins and data sources become more lively, interactive and personalized.
“We start with text, then photos, then videos. The next step will be new formats that only AI can realize,” Zuckerberg shared.
He also said that current applications such as Facebook, Instagram or Threads are basically just content-proposing algorithms, but in the future, they will be upgraded to platforms that understand users and automatically create content that suits personal preferences.
This means that AI-generated content may increasingly dominate social networks. Instead of just displaying posts from friends or content creators, Meta platforms can flood with videos, images and articles produced by AI, personalized according to the goals, habits and behaviors of each user.
In fact, Meta has started testing this direction. In 2025, the company introduced the "Vibes" data feed in the Meta AI application, which only displays short videos created by AI.
Zuckerberg once stated that AI would add a huge content store to the proposal system, thanks to its ability to create and remix content quickly at a low cost.
According to Meta's Chief Financial Officer, Susan Li, AI is also increasing the time users stay in Instagram, especially through features such as AI video translation, with hundreds of millions of views per day.
This opens up great commercial opportunities, from more accurate targeted advertising to paid registration models for Meta AI chatbots.
Zuckerberg also suggested a future where users can create their own world, games or interactive experiences using AI, then share them with friends and family.
Any video you watch can become a space for you to participate in and experience," Zuckerberg said.
Although no longer emphasizing the metaverse as before, Meta affirms that investments in virtual reality will be appropriate and complement the development of AI.
In Q4/2025, Meta recorded revenue of 59.9 billion USD, and outlined a roadmap to make money from AI through advertising and subscription packages.
However, the $135 billion gamble also raises many questions: Will social networks be "soaked" in AI content, overshadowing human creativity? And will users accept or oppose a world where most of the content they watch is created by machines?
The answer may shape the future of Facebook, Instagram and the digital media era.
