Meta’s CFO Susan Li has a new AI customer in mind: corporate America

Meta's CFO Susan Li has expressed optimism about the potential of enterprise AI, seeing it as a major battleground in the tech industry. During the company's third-quarter earnings call, Li emphasized that traditional enterprise companies have yet to fully embrace AI. She noted that new players have emerged in recent years, investing heavily in model development, to which Meta has matched their efforts.

Li stated that Meta aims to create a Meta Enterprise Platform, which will combine its AI models with business-oriented products, APIs, and AI agents for integration into its services. The ultimate goal is to compete in the enterprise software and AI markets, offering AI-driven solutions for software development, productivity, sales, marketing, and customer service.

Li highlighted the potential for monetizing these offerings through subscriptions, usage-based APIs, and other business models that could provide Meta with diversified recurring revenue streams beyond advertising. Currently, Meta is expanding its consumer AI offerings, evidenced by the rapid adoption of Muse personal agents by over 10 million people in the U.S. and Canada within six weeks of launch, with about 25% using them daily.

Strong advertising revenue growth, driven by higher ad performance and macroeconomic conditions, funds Meta's AI ambitions. The company also issued Class C stock shares to support the AI buildout, employee compensation, and acquisitions. Capital expenditures increased significantly in the third quarter, reaching $34.9 billion, up from $19.4 billion a year earlier.

Meta anticipates revenue between $73 and $76 billion for the fourth quarter, slightly below analysts' consensus estimate of $73.75 billion.