Article summary
- Mark Zuckerberg said AI is helping people to spend more time on Facebook and Instagram than before.
- This has also helped the company to achieve an increase in revenue for Q1 2023.
- Zuckerberg also disclosed that Meta is not stopping its Metaverse projects as it continues to invest in it alongside AI.
Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, said people now spend more time on Facebook and Instagram because of the company’s massive deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Speaking during the company’s Q1 earnings call on Wednesday, Zuckerberg explained that AI now recommends content to users from people, groups and accounts they do not follow. Consequently, this has increased the time Facebook and Instagram users now spend on the platforms by more than 24%.
Also, people staying longer on Facebook and Instagram has helped to boost Meta’s earnings by 3% in Q1 2023. Meta’s Revenue rose to $28.65 billion in the first quarter of this year as daily active users on its platforms rose to 3.02 billion on average for March 2023, an increase of 5% year-over-year.
Investment in AI
Mark Zuckerberg noted that the company has invested heavily in AI to drive its revenue. He also explained in detail how this has impacted the company positively, saying:
- “Our investment in recommendations and ranking systems has driven a lot of the results that we’re seeing today across our discovery engine, Reels, and ads. Along with surfacing content from friends and family, now more than 20% of the content in your Facebook and Instagram feeds are recommended by AI from people, groups, or accounts that you don’t follow.
- “Across all of Instagram, that’s about 40% of the content that you see. Since we launched Reels, AI recommendations have driven a more than 24% increase in time spent on Instagram. Our AI work is also improving monetization.
- “Reels monetization efficiency is up over 30% on Instagram and over 40% on Facebook quarter-over-quarter. Daily revenue from Advantage+ Shopping Campaigns is up 7x in the last six months.
- “Our work to build out business messaging as the next pillar of our business is making progress too. I shared last quarter that click-to-message ads reached a $10 billion revenue run rate. And since then, the number of businesses using our other business messaging service — paid messaging on WhatsApp — has grown by 40% quarter-over-quarter.”
No going back on Metaverse
Debunking recent reports that Meta might have given up on its Metaverse project, Zuckerberg said the company’s vision for Metaverse is still intact and will continue to invest in it alongside AI.
- “Beyond AI, the other major technology wave we’re focused on is the metaverse. A narrative has developed that we’re somehow moving away from focusing on the metaverse vision, so I just want to say upfront that that’s not accurate. We’ve been focusing on both AI and the metaverse for years now, and we will continue to focus on both,” Zuckerberg said.
Meta’s Q1 2023 revenue beat expectations and it came as the first increase in year-over-year revenue in three quarters. However, this is coming amid plans by the company to lay off another 10,000 staff after disengaging 11,000 in November last year.
Sounds Good.