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LivestreamMenuMeta CEO Mark Zuckerberg demonstrates Muse, Meta’s artificial intelligence agent, during the Meta Connect event in Menlo Park, California, Sept. 23, 2026.Minh Connors | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Meta is slated to report third-quarter earnings after the bell on Wednesday, and investors will be looking for signs that the company’s latest artificial intelligence efforts will bolster future sales.
Here’s what analysts polled by LSEG are expecting:
- Earnings per share: $5.75
- Revenue: $63.2 billion
It’s been a big quarter for Mark Zuckerberg’s company due to the initial success of the Muse AI personal assistant tool that debuted in September and shot to the top of Apple’s iOS app store. That AI momentum helped Meta end September with its best month on Wall Street since 2022.
Meta isn’t the first to create a digital assistant that can organize people’s email and scan the web for headphone deals, but the company’s empire, which includes Facebook and Instagram, has helped introduce AI agents to the masses. At the same time, Meta and its AI chief Alexandr Wang have continued rolling out new foundation models and related updates at a speedy clip, including Muse Wonder, which was released last Monday.
Wall Street will likely be monitoring for whether Meta plans to increase its data center-related capital expenditures, or capex, to further develop the underlying computing infrastructure needed to power AI agents and foundation models.
The company revealed in July during its second-quarter earnings that it narrowed its 2026 capex guidance to come in between $130 billion and $145 billion, representing a $5 billion increase to the low end of its prior range. All that spending resulted in Meta’s free cash flow in the period shrinking to $784 million from $8.55 billion in the same quarter a year earlier.
Analysts expect Meta’s capex to swell to $196.3 billion in 2027, according to FactSet.
Meta’s third-quarter daily active people, or DAP, is expected to come in at 3.65 billion, according to StreetAccount, almost flat from the prior quarter. That figure represents all of Meta’s users across its family of apps like Facebook and Instagram.
50 Min Ago
Meta sets the stage for hyperscaler earnings
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Meta will be the first hyperscaler to reveal quarterly financials during this tech earnings cycle, with Alphabet, Microsoft and Amazon slated to report next week.
The four companies combined have called for roughly $730 billion in capital expenditures this year as they stock up on graphics processing units and AI systems and look to build massive data centers around the globe.
Analysts polled by FactSet expect that number to hit around $1 trillion next year, led by Alphabet, which is projected to spend over $310 billion. The stepped up spending comes as interest rates soar and concerns intensify that AI revenue won’t justify the costs.
Alphabet and Microsoft are scheduled to report earnings next Wednesday, followed by Amazon on Thursday.
— Jonathan Vanian
1 Hour Ago
Meta’s legal headaches and state AG settlement
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Meta’s past quarter wasn’t all AI agents and good vibes.
The social media giant agreed in August to pay nearly $17 billion to settle a major lawsuit involving a group of state attorneys general, including California’s Rob Bonta. The trial centered around allegations that Meta misled the public about the true scope of child mental health related harms caused by certain design elements of apps like Facebook and Instagram, including recommendation algorithms.
Meta’s state AG settlement could cause the company to miss on third-quarter earnings per share due to the related $10 billion legal charge that “the street has not yet accounted for,” Wolfe Research analysts wrote in a Monday note.
The company still faces numerous personal injury claims and a separate federal case involving a group of nationwide school districts that also focus on allegations that apps like Instagram have had detrimental effects on the well being of children.
— Jonathan Vanian
