By Hamza Faisal

Meta just answered the only question that mattered this quarter: is anyone actually using its AI? The answer, per Mark Zuckerberg, is more than 10 million people — that's how many set up Muse, Meta's personal AI agent, in the US and Canada in roughly six weeks since launch. About a quarter of them use it daily, and shopping is already the top use case.

The financials were strong underneath a very large asterisk. Third-quarter revenue surged 26% to $64.6 billion, comfortably ahead of the $63.34 billion Wall Street expected, on 10% more ad impressions and 14% higher average ad prices. But a $9.89 billion legal charge tied to August's multi-state settlement over teen mental health dragged GAAP operating income down 37% to $13 billion. Strip out the charge and operating income would have risen 11%, with earnings of $7.40 per share instead of the reported $3.83.

The Muse monetization question

Ten million signups is the easy part — getting paid is the test Zuckerberg set for himself. Management laid out a three-pronged plan: commerce fees, subscriptions, and enterprise offerings, with shopping already accounting for more than a quarter of active-user engagement. For a company spending $34.91 billion in a single quarter on AI infrastructure, Muse needs to become a business, not just a download chart.

The spending isn't slowing. Meta narrowed its full-year capital expenditure guidance to $135–145 billion, raising the floor, and guided fourth-quarter revenue to $73–76 billion. CFO Susan Li told analysts to expect aggressive investment to continue into 2027.

A stock split and a shrinking headcount

Meta also announced a new class of non-voting stock distributed as a two-for-one stock dividend, expected to begin trading in late January 2027 — a move aimed at funding growth without diluting voting control. Meanwhile the company's headcount fell 15% year over year to 66,775, even as the family of apps grew daily users 3% to 3.64 billion.

The numbers underneath the charge

Net income of $9.86 billion looks like a tripling from last year's $2.71 billion, but that comparison flatters — the year-ago quarter carried a one-time $16 billion tax charge. The cleaner read: the ad machine is humming, the AI bill keeps growing, and Muse just became the most important product launch in the company's recent history.

By Hamza Faisal