Beats everyone except Nvidia)

Most of the discussion about artificial intelligence (AI) has to do with infrastructure spending.
To date, few companies have meaningfully monetized their AI investments.
Meta Platforms is outperforming its peers in terms of AI-driven revenue.
10 stocks we like better than meta platforms ›

It’s no secret that artificial intelligence (AI) has been the main topic fueling action on Wall Street over the past few years. Specifically, levels of demand for high-performance GPUs, networking equipment, and data centers have dominated most of the AI narrative to date.

But what about monetization? Assessment of which companies, except Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) – that actually driving measurable AI-driven growth can be a challenge.

In my view, AI-focused investors should stay Metaplatforms (NASDAQ: META) on their radar in 2026. While his fellow megacaps get the lion’s share of the attention, the social media leader could be poised to become the next big AI contributor.

Image source: Getty Images.

Meta owns and operates four massive social media platforms: Facebook, Messenger, Instagramand WhatsApp Across its “family of apps,” the company serves 3.5 billion daily active users, on average. So it’s no surprise that advertisers are eager to get in front of Meta’s massive audience.

In the third quarter, Meta generated revenue of $51.2 billion, of which $50 billion came from its advertising segment. This represents a growth of 26% year-on-year. While that’s impressive, it wasn’t enough to excite Wall Street.

Where things get interesting is how Meta maintains its growth profile. Within its AI division, Meta introduced a product called Advantage+, a set of machine learning tools that help advertisers improve their targeted campaigns.

On the company’s third-quarter earnings call, CFO Susan Li told investors that Advantage+ is now running at an annual revenue rate of $60 billion. This was almost triple from the first quarter.

Beth Kindig, principal technology analyst at the I/O Fund, drew an interesting parallel between Meta’s growth and that of OpenAI. ChatGPT was released to the public in November 2022, just over three years ago. According to numerous media reports, OpenAI is expected to achieve a $20 billion revenue rate in 2025. During that same period, Meta grew its AI ad business from virtually nothing to $60 billion, 3x more than OpenAI.

Taking this a step further, Kindig wrote that “it would require an increase from 175% year-over-year growth to 460% year-over-year for Microsoft to match Meta’s AI revenue.”

In this context, Kindig posits that Meta has quietly become the second largest AI monetizer next to Nvidia.

While Kindig’s analysis is interesting, investors shouldn’t get too hung up on the AI-related sales pitch. The biggest takeaway from their analysis is that Meta’s top line growth looks muted compared to accelerating sales growth for its emerging AI products.

META Revenue Chart (TTM). — META Revenues (TTM) data for YCharts.

As I alluded to earlier, most of the talk surrounding AI in recent years has been about expense. Perhaps no other company is under more scrutiny in this regard than Meta.

Its capital expenditures far outpace the rate at which its revenues grow. In the long run, this is unsustainable.

No wonder investors panicked after Meta’s management said its capex would be “significantly higher” in 2026. The combination of aggressive spending and a new revenue stream that hasn’t yet matured will almost certainly hamper Meta’s ability to generate excess cash flow in 2026.

While I agree with Kindig that most investors are likely overlooking the magnitude and potential of Meta’s new AI ad business, prudent investors won’t jump into the stock based on one metric.

Over the past year, Meta stock has gone through a series of peaks and valleys. The steep selloff was largely influenced by investor wariness about the company’s spending.

Given its achievements to date and Advantage+’s track record, I am personally cautiously optimistic about its prospects. However, it still has a lot to prove against it Amazon, alphabetand others

For these reasons, smart investors should keep an eye out for specific updates on Advantage+ and Meta’s other AI ambitions. If these products continue to flourish and position the company to grow faster than its current long-term spending trajectory, I would take advantage of any selling pressure and buy the dip in the new year.

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Adam Spatacco has positions in Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms, Microsoft and Nvidia. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has one disclosure policy.

1 Artificial Intelligence (AI) Revenue Machine You’ll Want to See in 2026 (Hint: It Beats Everyone But Nvidia) was originally published by The Motley Fool

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