Mark Zuckerberg is buying Meta a seat at the AI table. Does he know what to do with it?

Meta's CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, posted a lengthy AI manifesto to the company's website in August. The extensive document, containing 6,537 words, echoed similar proclamations from CEOs of other AI-focused companies such as OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei. However, Zuckerberg's manifesto emphasized the importance of distributing superintelligence widely, giving every person the ability to direct it.

This approach aimed to empower individuals and lead to a new era of personal empowerment, where users could utilize the powerful new capability to achieve their full potential, pursue their interests, and improve their lives and the world more than ever before.

Nine months prior, during a Meta earnings call, Zuckerberg had hinted at how he intended to make this vision a reality. He expressed his focus on establishing Meta as the leading frontier AI lab, a goal that would require the company to surpass competitors such as Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, and even potential entrants like Microsoft, Amazon, and SpaceX. Over time, regulatory challenges from various entities, including Chinese AI companies, could also hinder Meta's progress.

Although Zuckerberg anticipated the rise of artificial intelligence, he initially diverted his attention towards virtual reality and the metaverse concept, which captivated his imagination so much that Facebook transformed into Meta in October 2021. In June 2025, the company invested $14 billion in a 49% stake in Scale AI, its second-largest deal after acquiring WhatsApp in 2014.

Scale's CEO, Alexandr Wang, joined Meta as the head of the newly formed Meta Superintelligence Labs or MSL. A further $2 billion was spent on Manus, an AI startup, but the deal was ultimately overturned by Chinese regulators.

To attract top AI talent, Meta has made unprecedented compensation packages even in Silicon Valley, with some employees reportedly receiving first-year pay of $100 million or more. The majority of Meta's AI investment, however, is directed towards the massive computing resources necessary to deploy AI at scale. The company plans to allocate between $130 billion and $145 billion on capital expenditures in 2026, more than double its spending in 2024 and 2025 combined.

Meta's vast resources give it a significant advantage in the AI race, according to a report by SemiAnalysis. The firm posits that Meta has the best chance of becoming a peer of frontier AI's leading labs, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, due to its data, talent, and computing resources. In July, Meta's ad business accounted for 98% of its revenue, with net income reaching $15.8 billion.

By the end of 2026, eMarketer predicts, Meta will surpass Google to become the world's largest digital advertising company. However, money alone cannot secure AI supremacy. The company's previous attempts at innovation, such as enterprise software, cryptocurrency, and most notably, the metaverse, have not yielded positive results.

Despite Meta's recent efforts to shift focus towards AI, the company remains primarily a social networking empire built on an ad-targeting platform.