According to a report by TechCrunch today (the 30th), Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is painting investors a picture of the future: In five years, billions of people around the world will have their own personal AI agents.
Zuckerberg made a bold prediction during the earnings call: “Whether you set the timeframe at five years or some other period, I think it’s highly unlikely that there won’t be billions of people using personal agents in the future. Personal agents will be able to understand your goals, work for you around the clock, and help you achieve your goals in any area you care about.”
Zuckerberg added that personal AI agents could help users manage finances, health, relationships, and family affairs. “In the future, everyone will interact with multiple agents simultaneously, and the importance of WhatsApp and other communication products owned by Meta will continue to grow accordingly.”
He also noted that WhatsApp has already become the primary platform for users to interact with Meta AI.
However, Meta continues to invest huge sums in innovative projects with uncertain prospects. After announcing its second-quarter financial results this year, the company’s stock price fell nearly 10%. Meta Reality Labs, which is responsible for AR glasses, VR headsets, and related software, posted a loss of approximately 46 billion US dollars (equivalent to approximately 31.159 billion yuan at the current exchange rate), broadly in line with its quarterly loss levels since 2021. Its cumulative losses have reached approximately 88 billion US dollars (equivalent to approximately 596.081 billion yuan at the current exchange rate).
A greater concern comes from Meta’s growing AI spending. Meta’s free cash flow this quarter was only 784 million US dollars (equivalent to approximately 5.311 billion yuan at the current exchange rate), compared with 8.55 billion US dollars (equivalent to approximately 57.915 billion yuan at the current exchange rate) in the same period last year, a year-on-year plunge of 91%. Investment in AI infrastructure further squeezed cash flow. This week, Meta and BlackRock announced that they would work together to build a data center in El Paso, Texas, worth 14 billion US dollars (equivalent to approximately 94.831 billion yuan at the current exchange rate).
Zuckerberg believes that the personal AI agents Meta is developing will become “the foundation for the next wave of products and revenue sources” over the coming months and even years.