Meta mad for AI and Ray Bans as tech giants rake in revenue
Meta’s first Australian marketing summit saw a heavy commitment to both AI and its Ray Ban Meta glasses in a rapid-fire series of presentations that pushed home an innovation-at-all-costs message.
The Meta Fest event in Sydney yesterday coincided with the announcement of a standalone Meta AI app and came just ahead of this morning’s upbeat earnings call where the digital giant revealed revenues for the first quarter of 2025 were up 16%.
Dan Neary addresses the crowd at Meta Fest
“We are all in on AI,” Meta APAC head Dan Neary said twice during his Meta Fest presentation. Neary covered Meta’s plans to build its biggest data centre – “roughly the size of Manhattan” – lay a 50,000 km undersea cable and spend up to US$65 billion on AI this year.
“We have about a billion monthly active users that are using Meta AI,” he said. “It’s the largest usage of any AI system in the world.”
Neary and several other Meta presenters appeared on stage wearing Ray Ban Meta glasses, adding a 1950s note in the otherwise modern Illumina venue in Martin Place.
“ I have my Ray Bans on, my Meta Ray Bans, and it’s powered by Meta AI. So I can listen to music, I can make phone calls, but I can also do a lot of other interesting things … I’m going to be in France later on in the summer and I’ll have on my … glasses and I’ll be able to simultaneously get translated somebody speaking in French … amazing.”
Neary also pushed the ability of Meta’s AI tools to generate ad creative for businesses, including multiple format iterations and variant testing.
“So over 4 million [businesses] are using the tools now,” he said. “Helps you improve your ads or develop more ads at scale.”
The dual themes of the Ray Bans – now being sold in Australia in JB Hifi and Harvey Norman – and Meta AI were carried through the afternoon. Influencer chef Andy Hearnden spoke of using the Ray Bans to film his cooking and the slightly less relatable situation of helping to navigate a Formula 1 pit.
Andy Hearnden speaks with Meta’s Adam Berger
Other speakers included Saatchi and Saatchi Australia Chief Creative Officer Mandie van der Merwe and Leonardo AI’s Jessie Hughes. Tech analyst Benedict Evans appeared in a dense recorded video that covered the macro trends around AI, leaving open the question whether generative AI was on par with the transition to mobile computing, or a more revolutionary shift. Uneven performances from influencers between presentations proved that success in vertical video does not seamlessly translate to the big stage.
Meta’s financial results this morning painted a positive financial picture for the company, which is facing legal and regulatory challenges. As noted, year-on-year revenue was up 16% for the first quarter, to US$42 billion. The vast majority of this is advertising revenue. Net income was also up 35% YOY, to $16.6 billion, with the Reality Labs part of the business (responsible for the Ray Bans and other augmented reality devices) holding losses around the same level. Total active daily audience for the Meta family of apps – Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger – was up 6%.
Meta is facing an antitrust suit from the US Federal Trade Commission, which claims it has an illegal monopoly in social networking and engaged in systematic elimination of rivals.
In other financial results, Microsoft joined Meta and Google in shrugging off global uncertainty, announcing a 13% YOY revenue increase for the quarter.
“On the consumer side: Our ad revenue surpassed $20 billion over the past year. Only at Microsoft could that almost get overlooked!” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote in a Linkedin post. Linkedin, which is owned by Microsoft, itself reported a 7% revenue increase YOY.
Microsoft, like Meta, has announced a fundamental focus on AI. Both digital stocks jumped after their earnings calls.
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