Meta’s New AI Model Arrives With A Bigger Question: Who Will Pay?

After spending billions to catch up in artificial intelligence, Meta has unveiled a new proprietary model to rival industry leaders, but its success may depend less on technical performance and more on whether it can turn its vast advertising machine into a reliable source of AI-driven revenue

Meta Platforms has released a new artificial intelligence model, its first major launch in over a year, as the company seeks to demonstrate returns on billions of dollars invested in the technology and outline a path to revenue.

The model, called Muse Spark, marks a shift toward proprietary systems, departing from Meta’s earlier reliance on open-source offerings such as its Llama family. The move underscores growing pressure on the company to monetize its AI investments and compete with rivals that have already built lucrative businesses around similar tools.

“It’s been a year of basically no releases and a lot of hiring, and then the capex worries for this year are pronounced,” said Morningstar analyst Malik Ahmed Khan. “I think Meta had to show investors and operators they have been working on something of substance. That’s the first step.”

Meta has spent heavily to bolster its AI capabilities. In June, it paid more than $14 billion to recruit Scale AI co-founder Alexandr Wang and key members of his team, forming a new unit, Meta Superintelligence Labs. The company also told investors it expects to spend between $115 billion and $135 billion on capital expenditures this year.

Khan said the next challenge will be execution and monetization.

Muse Spark will initially be available through a limited “private API preview” before Meta expands access to paying customers. The company has not provided further details on pricing.

The strategy brings Meta closer to competitors such as OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, which generate revenue by selling access to their models and embedding them into products and cloud services. Analysts say Meta’s late entry could make it harder to attract developers already committed to rival ecosystems.

Arun Chandrasekaran, an analyst at Gartner, described the shift as a “major shift” that “signals an intention to move away” from the Llama brand.

Meta’s advantage, however, lies in its vast user base across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, which together reach more than 3 billion people monthly. Analysts say the company is likely to focus on improving its core advertising business rather than competing directly for developers.

“That’s the crown jewel, that’s what needs to continue to improve,” said Andrew Boone, an analyst at Citizens.

Advertising accounted for 98% of Meta’s roughly $200 billion in revenue last year. The company has long sought to diversify, including through investments in the metaverse, but ads remain its primary source of income.

“I believe that would be the killer use case from Meta’s perspective,” Khan said, pointing to efforts to “make ads more engaging and improve targeting.”

Early benchmarks released by Meta suggest Muse Spark performs strongly in image and video processing, capabilities that could help advertisers create more dynamic campaigns for short-form video platforms such as Reels.

“Compared to like Claude and Gemini, I think it definitely feels like it has more of a consumer bent,” said Doris Xin, CEO of AI startup Disarray.

Still, the pivot away from open models may complicate Meta’s relationship with developers. Joseph Ott, CEO of Samu Legal Technologies, said he is uncertain what value Muse Spark offers compared with free or lower-cost alternatives.

“The only reason I would use Llama is that I could fine-tune it,” Ott said.

Others say developing in-house models is essential for long-term competitiveness.

“It is about AI sovereignty and being a player in the game,” said Ulrik Stig Hansen, co-founder of Encord. “They want to be perceived and known as an AI company.”

Analyst Boone said the technical performance of the new model suggests Meta’s investment is beginning to pay off, but added that responsibility now lies with Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to turn that progress into a viable business.

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