Latest news with #META
Yahoo
a day ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Mark Zuckerberg Is ‘Doubling Down' on AI and That's Great News for META Stock
One of the most notable investment themes in recent memory is, of course, an increasing focus on artificial intelligence (AI). Social media giant Meta Platforms (META) is not above this trend among companies. In fact, Meta Platforms is doubling down. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has gone all-in on AI, and Wall Street is clearly taking notice. META stock has jumped a notable 45% from its April low of $479.80 per share as investors rally behind the firm's growing commitment to AI innovation. The latest jolt of momentum comes from Meta's massive $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI, a leading data-labeling startup whose CEO is now joining Meta's artificial general intelligence (AGI) team. This move comes right after Meta raised its 2025 capital expenditure forecast to as much as $72 billion. That figure underlines just how serious Zuckerberg is about leading the AI race. 'It Has No Utility': Warren Buffett Doesn't Care How High Gold Goes, He Isn't a Buyer OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Says 'We Are Heading Towards a World Where AI Will Just Have Unbelievable Context on Your Life' Archer Aviation Is Betting Big on Its Fledgling Defense Business. Does That Make ACHR Stock a Buy Here? Tired of missing midday reversals? The FREE Barchart Brief newsletter keeps you in the know. Sign up now! Despite such heavy spending, the market response has remained positive. With several analysts across the Street hiking their price targets for META stock and optimism running high, this AI-fueled rally is hard to ignore. All signs point to Meta remaining a major player in the next tech era — and that makes shares worth a much closer look. Meta Platforms has evolved far beyond its Facebook roots. As the powerhouse behind Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, it still shapes how the world connects. But now the firm is setting its sights on the future of AI. Aside from its latest $14.3 billion bet on Scale AI, Meta has been steadily integrating AI into its core platforms since last year. In April 2025, the company launched Meta AI, a chatbot assistant that has already reached 1 billion monthly active users across its apps. Meta is also gaining traction in hardware, with AI-powered Ray-Ban smart glasses seeing user growth surge. Finally, the company is working on harnessing AI to supercharge ad targeting and boost user engagement across its entire app family, including Instagram and WhatsApp. META stock drew fresh attention on June 16, climbing 2.8% after the company announced plans to roll out ads within its WhatsApp messaging platform, unlocking a powerful new revenue stream from the app's massive global user base. Valued at around $1.75 trillion by market capitalization, Meta's aggressive AI strategy and new revenue channels are turning into a clear market win. The stock has climbed 18.8% so far in 2025, outshining most of its 'Magnificent Seven' peers. It's also outperforming the broader S&P 500 Index ($SPX) by a wide margin, with the benchmark up just 1.7% year-to-date. Meta kicked off fiscal 2025 with a blowout first-quarter earnings report on April 30, easily beating Wall Street's expectations on both the top and bottom lines. META stock jumped 4.2% in the following session as revenue surged 16% year-over-year (YOY) to $42.3 billion, topping forecasts of $41.2 billion. Even more impressive, earnings per share soared 37% to $6.43, crushing estimates by a notable 23.2% margin. Meta's ad business is showing serious strength, with key metrics moving solidly in the right direction. Ad impressions rose 5% YOY while the average price per ad jumped 10% YOY, signaling strong demand. And it's not just the ad side that's thriving. User engagement remains sky-high. In March 2025, Meta's family of apps reached 3.4 billion daily active users, up 6% from the prior year. CEO Mark Zuckerberg highlighted Meta's accelerating AI momentum, citing the success of Meta AI and the growing adoption of the firm's AI-powered smart glasses. Meta is heading into the second quarter with strong momentum, forecasting revenue to range between $42.5 billion and $45.5 billion. The company is also raising the bar on spending, boosting its 2025 capital expenditure outlook to a range of $64 billion to $72 billion, up from the previous range of $60 billion to $65 billion. This increase highlights Meta's sharpened focus on scaling its AI capabilities, with significant investments being poured into data centers to support its rapidly growing infrastructure. Wall Street is growing increasingly bullish on Meta, with major firms raising their price targets amid the company's aggressive AI push and new monetization strategies. Earlier this month, JPMorgan lifted its target on the stock to $735 from $675, reaffirming an 'Overweight' rating and highlighting Meta's dominant social media footprint and long-term growth strategy, particularly in AI and the Metaverse. Wells Fargo is also staying bullish on META stock, reiterating its 'Overweight' rating with a $664 target. The firm pointed to a potential $6 billion boost in WhatsApp ad revenue, a move that signals Meta's next big income stream is already in motion. Adding to the momentum, Oppenheimer bumped its price target to $775 from $665, citing a stronger-than-expected ad market and macro backdrop. While acknowledging some mixed feedback around Llama 4, the firm emphasized investor confidence in Meta's $14.3 billion Scale AI deal and its broader ability to 'unlock new business with AI.' Overall, Wall Street is giving Meta the green light with a 'Strong Buy' consensus that signals broad confidence in the company's growth trajectory and AI-driven future. Of the 53 analysts offering recommendations, 44 give META stock a 'Strong Buy' rating, three suggest a 'Moderate Buy,' four give it a 'Hold," and only two advocate for a 'Strong Sell" rating. META stock's average analyst price target of $704.57 indicates marginal upside potential from current price levels. However, the Street-high price target of $935 suggests that shares can still rally as much as 34% from here. On the date of publication, Anushka Mukherji did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. This article was originally published on
Khaleej Times
3 days ago
- Business
- Khaleej Times
A new era of data protection: How Forcepoint is redefining cybersecurity in the AI Age
In an age where data has become the new currency, most organisations are struggling to make sense of the very asset that fuels their digital transformation. Where is it stored? Who's accessing it? Is it regulated? Should it even be accessible at all? These aren't just questions anymore, they're business-critical dilemmas. And the stakes are only getting higher as the adoption of AI and cloud ecosystems explodes across the Middle East. In this rapidly evolving landscape, Forcepoint Data Security Cloud emerges as a game-changer. This all-in-one, AI-powered platform is designed to radically simplify and supercharge the way enterprises safeguard their most valuable digital asset: data. 'At Forcepoint, we've recognised a critical truth — organisations don't just need more tools. They need smarter, unified solutions that evolve as risk evolves,' says Samer Diya, Vice-President, META, Forcepoint. 'That's why we created Forcepoint Data Security Cloud, an intelligent platform that unifies visibility and control across endpoints, cloud environments, and hybrid workforces.' Cutting Through the Chaos The biggest challenge facing enterprises today isn't just cyberthreats, it's the overwhelming sprawl of data. Businesses have generated enormous volumes of it, yet most struggle to understand where it resides, whether it's sensitive, or how it's being used. Forcepoint's new platform brings clarity to this chaos. By combining AI-powered Data Security Posture Management (DSPM), real-time Data Detection and Response (DDR), and seamless integration with SaaS, web, and email gateways, the platform enables continuous, automated protection wherever data is created, moved, or stored. 'At the core of everything is our AI Mesh technology, a network of finely tuned small language models that dynamically classify data, evaluate risk, and recommend real-time actions,' explains Diya. 'This is what sets us apart, we're making security proactive, not reactive.' Context Is Key While many organisations still rely on outdated, rule-based security systems, Forcepoint is paving the way for adaptive, AI-driven protection that aligns with the reality of modern work — remote access, BYOD, cloud apps, and the rise of GenAI tools. 'AI Mesh acts as the nervous system of our platform,' Diya notes. 'It assesses the full context of every interaction: who the user is, what device they're on, what app they're using, and whether their actions are normal or suspicious. This allows us to adapt security controls in real-time, delivering smarter and stronger protection.' This evolution is essential as static models simply can't keep up with today's fast-paced, data-rich environments. Navigating the GenAI Wave in the GCC With governments across the GCC pouring investment into AI and its economic impact expected to hit $35 billion annually, enterprises in the region are under mounting pressure to strike a balance between innovation and security. 'GenAI brings incredible value, but it also introduces unprecedented risks like data leakage, non-compliance, and unauthorised data sharing,' says Diya. 'Our goal is to make data protection simpler and more compliant from the start.' That's where Forcepoint's library of over 1,700 pre-built templates and explainable AI models comes in, helping security teams customize protections while demonstrating transparent decision-making to auditors and regulators. Unified Security for a Unified Workforce As businesses shift toward hybrid work and cloud-first operations, Forcepoint's all-in-one platform provides a single source of truth, eliminating the inefficiencies of siloed security tools. 'Today's digital-first enterprises need consistent protection across all channels — endpoints, email, web, cloud,' Diya emphasises. 'With Forcepoint, a single set of intelligent policies safeguards data in-use, in-motion, and at rest.' This not only simplifies security management but also reduces operational overhead and the cost of maintaining multiple point solutions. AI: The Ultimate Double-Edged Sword Looking ahead to 2025 and beyond, Diya predicts the cyber threat landscape will be increasingly shaped by AI, both as a weapon and as a shield. 'AI can be used to impersonate users, exfiltrate data, or manipulate systems. But it can also be our greatest ally in identifying and mitigating those same threats — faster and more accurately than ever before,' he explains. Forcepoint is betting on the latter. By leveraging AI not just to detect risks, but to make sense of them and act decisively, the company aims to empower enterprises to stay one step ahead always. Why One Platform is Better Than Many Perhaps the biggest pain point for modern security teams is alert fatigue, drowning in fragmented data from countless tools, each solving a sliver of the problem. 'Each new tool adds noise, complexity, and cost. Instead of reacting to symptoms, we help businesses focus on root causes,' says Diya. 'With our single platform approach, enterprises gain comprehensive, consistent, and cost-effective control over their data.' The Bottom Line Forcepoint's message to enterprises is clear: security doesn't have to be complex to be effective. In a world where data is everywhere, Forcepoint Data Security Cloud offers the simplicity, intelligence, and adaptability organizations need to thrive securely in the AI era. As Diya concludes, 'We're not just protecting data, we're enabling innovation. Our mission is Data Security Everywhere, and with AI at the core, we're helping businesses get there — faster, safer, and smarter.'
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Meta Platforms Adds Ads in WhatsApp: Is it the Next Revenue Pillar?
Meta Platforms META is adding channel subscriptions, promoted channels and ads in Status in the WhatsApp updates tab, which is now used by 1.5 billion people globally. META plans to maintain user privacy as personal messages, calls, and statuses remain end-to-end encrypted. The company will use limited information like country, city, language, channels followed and interaction with ads. The social-networking giant generated 97.8% of total revenues in the first quarter of 2025. Meta Platforms' focus on improving advertisers' return on ad spending has been a key catalyst. Its proprietary machine learning system, Andromeda, for retrieval in ad recommendation is powered by NVIDIA. AI is helping META become better at targeting and finding the right audience for advertisers. Availability of ads in WhatsApp Status is expected to boost META's top-line launch of the new Generative Ads Recommendation model for ads ranking, which is being used in Facebook Reels, has increased conversion rates by 5%. Meta Platforms also saw 30% more advertisers using AI creative tools. Improvements in META's recommendation system have led to a 7% increase in time spent on Facebook, a 6% increase on Instagram, and a 35% increase on Threads over the past six growing focus on social commerce through Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp is noteworthy. In first-quarter 2025, WhatsApp Business Platform, as well as Meta Verified subscriptions, contributed to deliver 34% year-over-year growth in Family of Apps other revenues, reaching $510 million. Per our model, META's 2025 revenues are expected to grow 11.8% year over year to $179.67 billion. Meta Platforms is facing stiff competition from Alphabet GOOGL and Amazon AMZN. Meta Platforms, Alphabet and Amazon are expected to absorb roughly 50% of the projected global ad spending by focus on leveraging AI to drive growth is a key catalyst. AI is infused heavily across its offerings, including Search, Google Cloud and Pixel. Alphabet has been taking up initiatives to improve its market share in Search through AI innovations. Alphabet surpassed 270 million paid subscriptions with YouTube and Google One as key Amazon benefits from strengthening its AWS services portfolio. Ultrafast delivery services and an expanding content portfolio are driving Prime growth. The robust advertising business is contributing well. Meta Platforms shares have appreciated 19.9% year to date (YTD), underperforming the broader Zacks Computer & Technology sector's return of 1.1% and the Zacks Internet Software industry's rise of 10.6%. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Meta Platforms stock is trading at a premium, with a forward 12-month Price/Sales of 8.98X compared with the industry's 5.57X. META has a Value Score of D. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research The Zacks Consensus Estimate for second-quarter 2025 earnings is pegged at $5.75 per share, up 3% over the past 60 days, indicating 11.43% year-over-year growth. Meta Platforms, Inc. price-consensus-chart | Meta Platforms, Inc. Quote The consensus mark for 2025 earnings is pegged at $25.14 per share, up by 3.2% over the past 30 days, suggesting 5.36% year-over-year Platforms currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Inc. (AMZN) : Free Stock Analysis Report Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL) : Free Stock Analysis Report Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research ( Zacks Investment Research
Globe and Mail
3 days ago
- Business
- Globe and Mail
Meta Platforms Adds Ads in WhatsApp: Is it the Next Revenue Pillar?
Meta Platforms META is adding channel subscriptions, promoted channels and ads in Status in the WhatsApp updates tab, which is now used by 1.5 billion people globally. META plans to maintain user privacy as personal messages, calls, and statuses remain end-to-end encrypted. The company will use limited information like country, city, language, channels followed and interaction with ads. The social-networking giant generated 97.8% of total revenues in the first quarter of 2025. Meta Platforms' focus on improving advertisers' return on ad spending has been a key catalyst. Its proprietary machine learning system, Andromeda, for retrieval in ad recommendation is powered by NVIDIA. AI is helping META become better at targeting and finding the right audience for advertisers. Availability of ads in WhatsApp Status is expected to boost META's top-line growth. The launch of the new Generative Ads Recommendation model for ads ranking, which is being used in Facebook Reels, has increased conversion rates by 5%. Meta Platforms also saw 30% more advertisers using AI creative tools. Improvements in META's recommendation system have led to a 7% increase in time spent on Facebook, a 6% increase on Instagram, and a 35% increase on Threads over the past six months. META's growing focus on social commerce through Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp is noteworthy. In first-quarter 2025, WhatsApp Business Platform, as well as Meta Verified subscriptions, contributed to deliver 34% year-over-year growth in Family of Apps other revenues, reaching $510 million. Per our model, META's 2025 revenues are expected to grow 11.8% year over year to $179.67 billion. META Faces Stiff Competition for Ad Dollars Meta Platforms is facing stiff competition from Alphabet GOOGL and Amazon AMZN. Meta Platforms, Alphabet and Amazon are expected to absorb roughly 50% of the projected global ad spending by 2028. Alphabet's focus on leveraging AI to drive growth is a key catalyst. AI is infused heavily across its offerings, including Search, Google Cloud and Pixel. Alphabet has been taking up initiatives to improve its market share in Search through AI innovations. Alphabet surpassed 270 million paid subscriptions with YouTube and Google One as key drivers. Meanwhile, Amazon benefits from strengthening its AWS services portfolio. Ultrafast delivery services and an expanding content portfolio are driving Prime growth. The robust advertising business is contributing well. META's Share Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates Meta Platforms shares have appreciated 19.9% year to date (YTD), underperforming the broader Zacks Computer & Technology sector's return of 1.1% and the Zacks Internet Software industry's rise of 10.6%. META's Performance Meta Platforms stock is trading at a premium, with a forward 12-month Price/Sales of 8.98X compared with the industry's 5.57X. META has a Value Score of D. META Valuation Image Source: Zacks Investment Research The Zacks Consensus Estimate for second-quarter 2025 earnings is pegged at $5.75 per share, up 3% over the past 60 days, indicating 11.43% year-over-year growth. The consensus mark for 2025 earnings is pegged at $25.14 per share, up by 3.2% over the past 30 days, suggesting 5.36% year-over-year growth. Meta Platforms currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days Just released: Experts distill 7 elite stocks from the current list of 220 Zacks Rank #1 Strong Buys. They deem these tickers "Most Likely for Early Price Pops." Since 1988, the full list has beaten the market more than 2X over with an average gain of +23.5% per year. So be sure to give these hand picked 7 your immediate attention. See them now >> Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Inc. (AMZN): Free Stock Analysis Report Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL): Free Stock Analysis Report Meta Platforms, Inc. (META): Free Stock Analysis Report
IOL News
3 days ago
- IOL News
Meta's AI chatbot is becoming a confessional—and everyone's watching
Conversation's with META's chatbot could be public and users dont know. Image: Supplied A MAN wants to know how to help his friend come out of the closet. An aunt struggles to find the right words to congratulate her niece on her graduation. And one guy wants to know how to ask a girl - 'in Asian' - if she's interested in older men. Ten years ago, they might have discussed those vulnerable questions with friends over brunch, at a dive bar, or in the office of a therapist or clergy member. Today, scores of users are posting their often cringe-making conversations about relationships, identity and spirituality with Meta's AI chatbot to the app's public feed - sometimes seemingly without knowing their musings can be seen by others. Meta launched a stand-alone app for its AI chatbot nearly two months ago with the goal of giving users personalized and conversational answers to any question the could come up with - a service similar to those offered by OpenAI's ChatGPT or Anthropic's Claude. But the app came with a unique feature: a discover field where users could post their personal conversations with Meta AI for the world to see, reflecting the company's larger strategy to embed AI-created content into its social networks. Since the April launch, the app's discover feed has been flooded with users' conversations with Meta AI on personal topics about their lives or their private philosophical questions about the world. As the feature gained more attention, some users appeared to purposely promote comical conversations with Meta AI. Others are publishing AI-generated images about political topics such as Trump in diapers, images of girls in sexual situations and promotions to their businesses. The flurry of personal posts on Meta AI is the latest indication that people are increasingly turning to conversational chatbots to meet their relationship and emotional needs. As users ask the chatbots for advice on matters ranging from their marital problems to financial challenges, privacy advocates warn that users' personal information may end up being used by tech companies in ways they didn't expect or want. 'We've seen a lot of examples of people sending very, very personal information to AI therapist chatbots or saying very intimate things to chatbots in other settings, ' said Calli Schroeder, a senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. 'I think many people assume there's some baseline level of confidentiality there. There's not. Everything you submit to an AI system at bare minimum goes to the company that's hosting the AI.' Video Player is loading. 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Next Stay Close ✕ Meta spokesman Daniel Roberts said chats with Meta AI are set to private by default and users have to actively tap the share or publish button before it shows up on the app's discover field. Still, the company's share button doesn't explicitly tell users where their conversations with Meta AI will be posted and what other people will be able to see - a fact that appeared to confuse some users about the new app. The discover feed on Meta AI reads like a mixture of users' personal diaries and Google search histories, filled with questions ranging from the mundane to the political and philosophical. In one instance, a husband asked Meta AI in a voice recording about how to grow rice indoors for his 'Filipino wife.' Users asked Meta about Jesus' divinity; how to get picky toddlers to eat food and how to budget while enjoying daily pleasures. The feed is also filled with images created by Meta AI but conceived by users' imaginations, such as one of President Donald Trump eating poop and another of the grim reaper riding a motorcycle. In April, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told podcaster Dwarkesh Patel that one of the main reasons people used Meta AI was to talk through difficult conversations they need to have with people in their lives - a use he thinks will become more compelling as the AI model gets to know its users. 'People use stuff that's valuable for them,' he said. 'If you think something someone is doing is bad and they think it's really valuable, most of the time in my experience, they're right and you're wrong.' There are few regulations pushing tech companies to adopt stricter content or privacy rules for their chatbots. In recent months, a couple of high-profile incidents triggered questions about how tech companies handle personal data, who has access to that data, and how that information could be used to manipulate users. In April, OpenAI announced that ChatGPT would be able to recall old conversations that users did not ask the company to save. On X, CEO Sam Altman said OpenAI was excited about '[AI] systems that get to know you over your life, and become extremely useful and personalized.' The potential pitfalls of that approach became obvious the following month, when OpenAI had to roll back an update to ChatGPT that incorporated more personalization because it made the tool sycophantic and manipulative toward users. Last week, OpenAI's chief operating officer Brad Lightcap said the company intended to keep its privacy commitments to users after plaintiffs in a copyright lawsuit led by the New York Times demanded that OpenAI retain customer data indefinitely. Ultimately, it may be users that push the company to offer more transparency.
