Meta Q3 earnings updates: Stock tumbles 9% after big tax charge and plans to spend even more on AI (www.businessinsider.com)

It’s earnings day for Meta, and investors are focused squarely on AI, capex and monetization plans as the company reports Q3 results after the bell. Wall Street consensus expects $49.6B in revenue and $6.72 EPS, and the stock—up roughly 28% in 2025—reflects heavy optimism around Meta’s role in the AI “hyperscaler” trade. Shareholders want details on how Meta will deploy capital to build and commercialize large-scale AI (including its recent $14B investment in Scale AI) and whether AI-driven products will accelerate ad revenue, Instagram Reels engagement and device sales. Analyst estimates give a granular look at the business: advertising revenue ~$48.6B, Family of Apps revenue ~$49.0B, Reality Labs revenue ~$317M with an operating loss near $5.18B, and an operating margin around 39.3%. Ad impressions and price per ad are each expected to rise ~10–11%, with daily Family users at ~3.48B. Capital expenditure guidance is a focal point—Q4 capex is estimated ~$21.1B and full-year capex ~$69.3B—because it signals how aggressively Meta will build compute, data and model infrastructure. For the AI/ML community, Meta’s commentary will be the clearest signal yet on hardware scale-up, training investment pace, and concrete paths to monetize advanced models.