Meta’s Q2 ad revenue beats expectations as Zuckerberg says AI 'superintelligence in sight'

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, reported strong second-quarter 2025 earnings, driven primarily by robust advertising revenue growth.

 

Total revenue reached US$47.52 billion, up 22% from last year, with advertising accounting for $46.56 billion, an increase of 21%, surpassing Wall Street expectations. The growth was fuelled by an 11% rise in ad impressions across Meta’s Family of Apps and a 9% increase in the average ad price.

 

Net income climbed 36% to $18.34 billion, marking ten consecutive quarters of profit outperformance. The Family of Apps segment generated $47.15 billion in revenue and $24.97 billion in operating income, while Reality Labs posted a $4.53 billion operating loss.

 

Much of this growth is credited to Meta’s AI advancements in its advertising offerings, such as smarter ad recommendations and campaign automation. Currently, over 4 million advertisers use the AI-powered Advantage+ campaigns, achieving a 22% improvement in returns. Building on this success, Meta plans to enable brands to fully create and target ads using AI by the end of 2026.

 

CEO Mark Zuckerberg reflected on the quarter’s performance by saying, “We've had a strong quarter both in terms of our business and community.” 

 

On the investor call, Meta’s CFO Susan Li noted that WhatsApp, one of the company’s newer advertising platforms, is not expected to be a “meaningful contributor” to overall ad revenue growth in the near term. She explained, “We also expect WhatsApp ads and status to earn a lower average price than Facebook or Instagram ads for the foreseeable future, due in part to WhatsApp’s skew toward lower monetising markets and more limited information that can be used for targeting.”

 

Personal superintelligence

 

In a memo published July 30th on Meta's website, Zuckerberg outlined his bold vision for “personal superintelligence,” acknowledging significant early progress. He wrote, “Over the last few months we have begun to see glimpses of our AI systems improving themselves. The improvement is slow for now, but undeniable. Developing superintelligence is now in sight.”

 

He stressed Meta’s distinctive ambition to “bring personal superintelligence to everyone,” focusing on empowering individuals to direct this technology toward what matters most in their lives. Zuckerberg said this approach is distinct from other companies primarily aiming to harness superintelligence for productivity and automation, which he said would lead humanity to “live on a dole of its output.” He warned that the coming decade will be decisive in determining whether superintelligence becomes a tool for personal empowerment or a force that “replaces large swathes of society.”

 

Though Zuckerberg did not provide too much detail of what would qualify as “superintelligence” versus standard artificial intelligence, he did say that it may involve wearing glasses. 

 

"Personal devices like glasses that understand our context because they can see what we see, hear what we hear, and interact with us throughout the day will become our primary computing devices."

 

Yet he also highlighted potential dangers, cautioning that “personal superintelligence could pose novel safety concerns,” and emphasised the need to “be rigorous about mitigating these risks and careful about what we choose to open source.”

 

Superintelligence talent and spending surge

 

To pursue this vision, Meta has aggressively expanded its superintelligence team, acquiring top talent from leading AI firms. After investing $14.3 billion for a 49% stake in Scale AI and appointing its CEO, Alexandr Wang, as Meta’s chief AI officer, the company has reportedly attracted engineers away from Apple, Github, and various startups with compensation packages rumoured to reach over $200 million.

 

“To win the superintelligence race requires the best of the best talent and Meta has been on a roll when it comes to recruiting top AI talent," said Mike Proulx, Forrester’s research director. "Money talks and Meta has plenty of it—reaching into the company’s deep pockets to lure luminaries from its competition with lavish compensation packages, while spending hundreds of billions on datacentres to power and scale its AI initiatives.”

 

Meta expects to spend between $66 billion and $72 billion in capital expenditures for 2025, with the bulk going toward infrastructure and growing technical headcount. The company’s workforce rose 7% to 75,945 employees as of June.

 

Looking ahead, Meta projects third-quarter revenue between $47.5 billion and $50.5 billion.