Tech giant Meta on Wednesday reported quarterly profits that were well above expectations, brushing aside market worries that its heavy investments in cloud computing and artificial intelligence would hamper growth.
The company reported a $16.6 billion profit in the first three months of the year on revenue of $42.3 billion, with business spending on ads remaining strong.
Shares in the social media giant — which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — rose more than four percent in after-market trades.
“We’ve had a strong start to an important year, our community continues to grow and our business is performing very well,” said Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg.
“We’re making good progress on AI glasses and Meta AI, which now has almost one billion monthly actives.”
Meta this week unveiled its first standalone AI assistant app, challenging ChatGPT by giving users a direct path to its generative AI models.
Zuckerberg said in an Instagram video post that the app “is designed to be your personal AI” and could be primarily accessed through voice conversations, with the interactions personalized to the individual user.
Meta is putting AI to work throughout its platforms, from creating and targeting ads to recommending content for users, according to Zuckerberg.
