Meta is uniquely positioned as both a top AGI threat target (attention economy) and a top AGI beneficiary (leading AI lab), making it a moderate risk with high optionality.
Meta Platforms operates the world's largest social media ecosystem including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, serving over 3 billion daily active users. The company generates the vast majority of its revenue from targeted digital advertising across its family of apps. Meta also invests heavily in Reality Labs, developing virtual and augmented reality hardware (Quest headsets) and metaverse software platforms. The company is a major investor in AI infrastructure and deploys AI extensively across its advertising, content recommendation, and generative AI products.
Advertisers ranging from small local businesses to large global enterprises who purchase targeted digital ads to reach Meta's billions of users. The ad platform is self-serve, making it accessible to businesses of all sizes. End users of the platforms are the product, not the customer. Reality Labs serves consumers purchasing VR/AR hardware.
AGI could fundamentally change how people discover information, communicate, and consume content, potentially bypassing social media feeds entirely. If AGI agents act as intermediaries for users, the attention-based advertising model collapses because AGI agents do not watch ads. Meta's massive AI research investments could be leapfrogged by AGI breakthroughs from competitors. Advertisers span all industries, so customer base is diversified. However, if AGI agents handle purchasing decisions for consumers, the entire digital advertising ecosystem is undermined. Knowledge-worker advertisers (SaaS, professional services) would shrink, but consumer goods advertisers remain.