Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced plans to nearly double the company’s artificial intelligence (AI) spending this year, signalling a major push to capitalise on the booming sector despite warnings of a potential bubble.
During a call with financial analysts on Wednesday to discuss Meta’s 2025 results, Zuckerberg revealed that the company expects to spend up to $135 billion (£97 billion) in 2026, primarily on AI infrastructure and projects. This figure is almost twice the $72 billion Meta spent on AI last year and comes on top of roughly $140 billion invested over the past three years in an effort to gain an edge in the AI race.
Zuckerberg said he expects 2026 to be “the year that AI dramatically changes the way we work,” highlighting the potential for AI tools to significantly increase employee productivity. “We’re starting to see projects that used to take big teams now be accomplished by a single, very talented person,” he said, hinting at the possibility of further workforce reductions as the company integrates AI more deeply.
Meta has already laid off several hundred employees this year, primarily from its Reality Labs division, which handles the company’s metaverse, hardware, and AI initiatives. Zuckerberg emphasised that AI tools are being deployed across the company to help engineers and other staff complete work more efficiently. “There is a big delta between the people who do it and do it well and the people who don’t,” he noted.
Despite Meta’s optimism, industry experts caution that the AI sector may be overheating. Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins described the current market as “probably a bubble,” even while acknowledging that AI could ultimately surpass the internet in impact. JPMorgan Chase chief Jamie Dimon and Google CEO Sundar Pichai have voiced similar concerns about irrational exuberance in AI investments. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has also warned that investors as a whole may be “overexcited” about AI.
Meta’s financial report for the last quarter of 2025 showed that expenses rose faster than revenues, squeezing profit margins. Nevertheless, the company’s stock rose around 6.5% in extended trading in New York following the announcement, reflecting investor confidence in Zuckerberg’s AI-driven growth strategy.
With unprecedented spending planned for 2026, Meta is betting that AI will not only transform its operations but also reshape the broader technology landscape — even as skeptics warn that the surge in investment carries significant risks.
Melissa Enoch
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