Meta reports $58.1B in Q4 ad revenue, fueled by strong holiday demand and AI tools, as the company prepares for deeper transformation in 2026.
Meta Platforms reported a 24 percent year-over-year increase in advertising revenue to $58.1 billion in the fourth quarter, fueled by record holiday demand and continued investment in artificial intelligence. Company executives described 2026 as a pivotal year of organizational change, shaped by AI-driven innovation and internal restructuring.
“We are now seeing a major AI acceleration,” Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said in prepared remarks. “I expect 2026 to be a year where this wave accelerates even further on several fronts.”
For the quarter ended Dec. 31, overall ad impressions across Meta’s platforms rose 18 percent, while the average price per ad increased 6 percent, reflecting stronger advertiser demand, the company said in its earnings statement.
By the Numbers
- $58.1 billion – Advertising revenue generated in Q4 2025
- $10 billion – Combined revenue run rate from Meta’s AI video generator tools
- 6 percent – Increase in average price per ad during the quarter
Zuckerberg used the earnings call to outline his longer-term AI ambitions, describing possibilities such as generating personalized video games through Meta’s Horizon Worlds platform and sharing them across social networks. But he acknowledged that advertising will remain the company’s dominant growth engine for the foreseeable future.
“We are focused on things beyond ads,” Zuckerberg told investors. “But for the next couple of years, ads are going to be, by far, the most important driver of growth in our business. Even if new initiatives scale quickly, they will take time to be meaningful at the scale of the ads business.”
Behind the scenes, Meta is deploying AI to refine its ad-ranking systems and models that predict user behavior. During the quarter, the company doubled the number of graphics processing units dedicated to training its Generative Ads Recommendation Model. Those improvements contributed to a 3 percent increase in clicks on Facebook and a 1 percent lift in conversions on Instagram, said Chief Financial Officer Susan Li.
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Advertisers are also increasing their use of Meta’s generative AI tools for campaign creation. The company’s AI-powered video generation products reached a combined revenue run rate of $10 billion in the quarter. Growth in those tools outpaced overall advertising revenue growth by nearly threefold on a quarter-over-quarter basis, Li said.
Looking ahead, Meta plans to integrate AI more deeply into commerce through shopping agents that deliver personalized product recommendations.
“Our ads today help businesses find just the right, very specific people who are interested in their products,” Zuckerberg said. “New agentic shopping tools will allow people to find just the right, very specific set of products from the businesses in our catalog.”
Despite the efficiency gains AI promises, the technology remains expensive. Meta reported $22.14 billion in capital expenditures for the fourth quarter and $72.22 billion for the full year. Spending is set to accelerate sharply in 2026, with the company forecasting capital expenditures between $115 billion and $135 billion, largely to support AI development.
At the same time, Zuckerberg suggested that AI could enable leaner operations. “We’re starting to see projects that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person,” he said.
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Meta has faced internal growing pains as it reorganizes around AI, including the departure of several senior AI leaders and reported tensions between newer AI-focused units and the rest of the company.
Still, the fourth-quarter results underscored the continued strength of Meta’s core advertising business—even as it bets heavily on an AI-powered future.
