How Meta has become an AI behemoth

When you think of Meta (META), you might think of Facebook, Instagram, or, shudder, the metaverse. But the social media company has quickly become an artificial intelligence darling up there with the likes of OpenAI, Microsoft (MSFT), and Google (GOOG, GOOGL).

Meta’s AI success comes via its Llama family of models, which the company is infusing across its various social platforms — including its

Meta AI assistant for Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. Businesses are also putting Llama to work. In August, Meta reported organizations ranging from Accenture (ACN) and DoorDash (DASH) to Goldman Sachs (GS) are using Llama to develop their own AI software.

It’s not just that Meta is implementing its AI into its own products, though. The company is also offering up its Llama models as open-source software. Open-source software is, generally, software that companies create and then allow developers to download and augment for free. That contrasts with, say, OpenAI, which uses a closed-source software approach for its GPT family of models.

All of that has helped to make Meta a formidable force in the AI space and a potential threat to its AI rivals.

“If Llama did not exist, OpenAI and [Google’s] Gemini would be in a better position,” Deepwater Asset Management managing partner Gene Munster told Yahoo Finance. “There are undoubtedly some developers who, if not for Llama existing, would have been probably forced to go to Gemini or GPT.”

But the AI industry is still in its infancy, and there’s no telling which company will be the big winner in the long run.

Meta is playing the long game
Meta’s AI strategy should provide a number of benefits for the company in the near and long term. Out of the gate, the company is able to apply its Llama models to its products, helping to improve its own offerings while simultaneously proving the software’s worth in real-world scenarios.

After all, if Meta is using its models in its own products, why shouldn’t third-party developers? And because the Llama family is open source, developers can take a look under the software’s hood, allowing them to address any flaws or risks over time.

“Meta has been democratizing AI, open sourcing it, utilizing what they're building in their own platforms,” said Futurum Group CEO Daniel Newman. “They've been doing it really at all the layers.”

Of course, Llama won’t just help Meta improve its existing software and build goodwill among developers, it could also prove to be a steady revenue stream in the long run.

“We want this to be open, but if you're someone like Microsoft or Amazon or Google and you're going to basically be reselling these services, that's something that we think we should get some portion of the revenue for,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during Meta’s third quarter 2023 earnings call. “So those are the deals that we intend to be making, and we've started doing that a little bit.”

While Zuckerberg said he doesn’t think those deals will contribute much to Meta’s revenue now, the CEO said he hopes it can in the long term.

Shares of Meta are up 85% over the last 12 months, compared to Microsoft and Google, which are up 25% and 18%, respectively. Analysts say the company’s shares are priced well relative to earnings, but the promise of how AI will boost the social media company’s own products could prove to be a tailwind.