Jessica Chou/The New York Times/Redux
Meta's CEO maps out a path to 'personal superintelligence' backed by up to $135 billion in spending, and Wall Street is actually buying it this time
Remember when Mark Zuckerberg bet the entire company on the Metaverse, renamed Facebook to Meta, and spent billions building virtual worlds that roughly nobody asked for? During Meta’s latest earnings call, Zuckerberg laid out an AI roadmap so ambitious it makes the Metaverse pivot look like a weekend hobby project. The difference this time: investors seem to believe him.
Meta is planning capital expenditures between $115 billion and $135 billion for 2026, nearly doubling what the company spent the prior year. That’s not a typo. We’re talking about a single company preparing to deploy more capital than the GDP of most countries, all in the name of building what Zuckerberg calls “personal superintelligence.”
From open-source darling to proprietary powerhouse #
The strategy represents a meaningful departure from Meta’s previous AI playbook. For years, the company leaned heavily into open-source models, most notably its Llama family of large language models. Llama 4, released in 2025, landed with a thud. The reception was, to put it diplomatically, underwhelming.
So Zuckerberg is pivoting. Meta’s new direction emphasizes proprietary AI capabilities, a sharp turn for a company that once positioned itself as the open-source champion of the AI arms race.
The clearest signal of this shift came with the April 2026 launch of Muse Spark, Meta’s first major closed-source AI system. Muse Spark is designed specifically for agentic workflows, meaning it’s built to handle complex, multi-step tasks autonomously rather than just answering questions.
Then there’s the Scale AI deal. Meta acquired a $14.3 billion stake in Scale AI and installed its founder, Alexandr Wang, as head of a newly formed division called Meta Superintelligence Labs, or MSL.
Hardware meets AI #
Sales of Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses tripled in 2025, suggesting that consumers actually want AI baked into devices they already wear.
What Zuckerberg is actually saying #
During the earnings call, Zuckerberg struck a tone that was notably more measured than his Metaverse-era pronouncements. He framed 2026 as a year of steady model releases and product integrations rather than one giant moonshot.
“I expect our first models will be good… but more importantly, we’ll show the rapid trajectory that we’re on.”
The earnings call also drew limited comparisons to the Metaverse era, instead positioning AI as a more executable investment.
What this means for investors #
Wall Street responded positively to the announcements, with Meta shares rising after the earnings call. Meta has nearly four billion monthly active users across its family of apps, a growing hardware business in smart glasses, and now a proprietary AI research lab backed by a $14.3 billion strategic acquisition.
But the risks are equally real. Spending up to $135 billion in a single year on infrastructure creates enormous pressure to deliver results. If Muse Spark and subsequent proprietary models don’t meaningfully outperform competitors, or if the agentic AI market develops more slowly than expected, Meta will be sitting on a mountain of infrastructure with uncertain returns.
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