Meta’s push into artificial intelligence is becoming harder to ignore, but not for the reasons Mark Zuckerberg likely wanted. The company has reportedly spent as much as US$14 billion, or around Rp 248 triliun, on AI efforts, yet investors still have not seen enough to feel convinced.
The biggest symbol of that bet is Alexandr Wang, the 29-year-old founder of Scale AI who has been described as an AI “wonder kid.” He now leads Meta Superintelligence Labs, a new division meant to anchor Meta’s next phase in the AI race.
A strategy built for speed
Zuckerberg sees AI as central to Meta’s future and wants the company to move quickly against rivals such as OpenAI, Google AI, and Anthropic. That urgency has pushed Meta toward proprietary model development, including Muse Spark, which Wang introduced in April.
Muse Spark is designed to fit into Meta’s broader consumer ecosystem. In practice, that means possible integration with Facebook, Instagram, and Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, giving Meta a route to strengthen both software and hardware positioning.
Even so, the market has not rewarded the effort. Meta shares have fallen about 18 percent over the past 12 months, a sign that investors are still waiting for clearer evidence that the company’s AI plan can translate into meaningful results.
The open-source trade-off
Analysts point to an additional problem beyond spending levels: Meta’s early strategic choice. The company entered the AI race through Llama with an open-source approach, allowing developers around the world to use and modify the models for free.
That move helped spread adoption and speed up innovation, but it also made direct monetization more difficult. Compared with rivals that keep their AI products behind paid systems, Meta has had fewer obvious ways to turn technical momentum into immediate revenue.
The challenge became more visible after Llama 4 failed to meet market expectations last year. That setback appears to have pushed Zuckerberg toward a more aggressive reset, including bringing Wang into Meta’s AI leadership structure.
Wang’s role is important, but not yet enough
Thomas Randall of Info-Tech Research Group says Meta is not on the optimal track yet, although the direction is becoming clearer. He also said that without Wang, Meta could have lost its direction entirely, underscoring how much the company is leaning on the new leadership move.
For now, that still leaves a larger question unanswered: can heavy spending, a young star executive, and a new lab close the gap with the company’s main competitors? The answer will determine whether Meta’s AI push becomes a turnaround story or another expensive race with no instant winner.