Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms Inc., wears Meta Oakley Vanguard AI glasses during the MetaConnect event on Wednesday, September 17, 2025 in Menlo Park, California, USA.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
meta With fourth-quarter results set to be released on Wednesday, investors will be looking for signs that a revamped artificial intelligence strategy will pay dividends for the company in 2026.
Here are the forecasts of analysts surveyed by LSEG:
Earnings per share: Estimated $8.21 Revenue: Estimated $58.35 billion
Meta spent much of 2025 overhauling its AI division, including investing $14.3 billion in Scale AI to acquire startup founder Alexandr Wang and several of his colleagues.
Wang oversees Meta’s top-level TBD department, which is tasked with developing powerful AI models. After releasing the Llama 4 model last spring, the company decided to leave it undecided due to lackluster response from developers. Meta is testing a new Frontier model and a successor to Llama (codenamed Avocado) and plans to release it in the first half of this year, CNBC reported.
Meta’s AI efforts are supported by the construction of large-scale data centers, but OpenAI and alphabet Please do the same. Meta Inc. announced Tuesday that it has committed to paying glass manufacturing giant Corning up to $6 billion by 2030 for fiber-optic cables for its AI data centers.
Investors have been spooked by Meta’s high investment in artificial intelligence, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg characterized the move as necessary given the rapid pace of development in AI.
“Being able to make a fairly large investment here is very likely to pay off over a period of time,” Zuckerberg told analysts in October.
Capital expenditures related to Meta’s data center push are expected to be $21.97 billion in the current quarter, according to StreetAccount.
According to StreetAccount, the company’s online ad sales are expected to be $56.98 billion in the fourth quarter.
Wall Street expects daily active population to be 3.58 billion in the fourth quarter.
Investors will also be watching to see what Mr. Zuckerberg has to say about the company’s Reality Labs division, which builds virtual reality, augmented reality and wearable technology aimed at powering the so-called metaverse.
Earlier this month, Meta laid off more than 1,000 Reality Lab employees who worked on VR-related efforts, including its in-house studio, as part of a shift of resources to AI and related wearable devices such as Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses.
Although Meta’s head of technology, Andrew Bosworth, told the media last week that Meta hasn’t stopped working on VR, the company’s heavy influence on the industry is chilling some developers and raising concerns about a VR winter, CNBC reported.
Analysts expect Reality Labs to report a fourth-quarter operating loss of $940.8 million on revenue of $5.67 billion. The sector has posted total operating losses of more than $70 billion since late 2020.
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