Meta Overshadows Microsoft With AI Payoff --- The Facebook parent's results highlight the advantages of its simpler, ad-focused business model

 

 

“Apparently, using artificial intelligence to get people to click on more ads is somewhat easier than persuading office workers to turn their spreadsheets and PowerPoints over to chatbots.

 

Quarterly reports from Meta Platforms and Microsoft late Wednesday showed the two AI spending champs on different trajectories. Revenue and operating income at both slightly exceeded Wall Street's expectations for the December-ended quarter, but Meta projected an acceleration in top-line growth for the March quarter while Microsoft's forecast implied a slowdown in growth for its larger revenue base.

 

The contrasting reports sent the two stocks in opposite directions in late trading after the reports. That is a notable shift for two companies that have been in the relative doghouse with investors of late, given growing concern in the market about runaway AI spending and its eventual payoff. Meta and Microsoft have been the two biggest AI spenders lately among megacap tech companies, as measured by AI capital investments relative to revenue. They have also been the only two stocks in the group to have lost ground over the past six months.

 

But investors are more forgiving of big spending when the core business is humming. Meta said Wednesday that it expects first-quarter revenue to grow 30% year over year to $55 billion at the guidance midpoint. That would be Meta's fastest growth since it was coming down from its Covid boost in 2021. It was well ahead of Wall Street's projections, and the company explicitly credited AI with helping it boost user engagement and ad performance.

 

"Jaw-dropping revenue acceleration trumps heavy investment, easily," wrote Dan Salmon of New Street Research in a note to clients.

 

Meta strongly suggested that more improvements are on the way. "Our world-class recommendation systems are already driving meaningful growth across our apps and ads business, but we think that the current systems are primitive compared to what will be possible soon," Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said on the company's conference call Wednesday.

 

Meta has a simpler business model, with 98% of its revenue coming from advertising.

 

Microsoft, by contrast, serves a highly complex mix of businesses, consumers and even gamers, with a sharp drop in Xbox sales weighing down its More Personal Computing segment in the holiday quarter.

 

But Microsoft's Azure cloud-computing business is the most closely watched by investors for AI impact, and that didn't come through this time either. Azure's revenue grew 39% year over year in the December quarter -- decelerating slightly from 40% growth in the previous period.

 

"If you are bullish on this name, you think Azure can grow north of 40%," Jackson Ader, a KeyBanc Capital software analyst, said in an interview. "They didn't, and the guidance makes it seem like that will be more difficult."

 

Both companies say they are still constrained by limited AI computing resources, with components such as Nvidia's GPU chips and even memory now in short supply.

 

But those constraints affect the two very differently, as Microsoft has to allocate resources for both its internal AI development efforts and the many external customers using its cloud-computing services for AI computing. Microsoft Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood said Wednesday that if the company had allocated all of its latest GPU chips to Azure, the growth rate would have been above 40% in the latest quarter.

 

Whatever its advantage now, Meta is setting itself a high bar for the year ahead. The company said Wednesday that it expects capital spending in the range of $115 billion to $135 billion for 2026. The midpoint of that forecast would equate to more than half the revenue Wall Street projects for Meta this year -- a heady sum for a company that has historically spent less than a quarter of its annual revenue on capex.

 

The Facebook and Instagram parent has a lot of clicks to still deliver.” [1]

 

1. Meta Overshadows Microsoft With AI Payoff --- The Facebook parent's results highlight the advantages of its simpler, ad-focused business model. Gallagher, Dan.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 30 Jan 2026: B10.