Meta narrows 2026 capex forecast, betting on AI agent competition
Meta's third-quarter capital expenditure was $34.91 billion, up from $31.08 billion in the second quarter, and it narrowed its full-year 2026 capital expenditure forecast to $135 billion to $145 billion. The company also disclosed that its AI assistant Muse has more than 2 million daily active users and 3 million downloads; Zuckerberg said Muse uses a model of offering a large number of tokens for free and later taking a small fee from transactions.
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Meta narrows its capital expenditure range and discloses Muse user figures, offering a window into the relationship between AI agent investment and the pace of commercialization.
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Meta is making it rain for AI.
The company spent $34.91 billion in capital expenditures during the third quarter of 2026. That's up from the second quarter's sum, $31.08 billion.
For the year 2026, Meta said it expects to spend between $135-145 billion in capital expenditures, narrowed from its prediction of $130-145 billion last quarter.
Meta's forecast includes the yearly capex prediction that analysts expected: $139.79 billion.
As Meta bets big on AI, it is investing heavily in its development. It has built massive, costly data centers and spent big on computing power.
The spending uptick was expected. On the "Cheeky Pint" podcast earlier this month, CEO Mark Zuckerberg recounted early conversations about the investment — and said he'd bet up to $200 billion on AI, before he knew the models would work.
Investors haven't loved Meta's massive capex forecasts in past quarters. The stock tumbled almost 10% last quarter after earnings per share missed Wall Street estimates, and sank 6% the quarter before on raised capex guidance.
This quarter, Meta has a new hero product: Muse.
The AI assistant has reached over 2 million daily users and 3 million downloads. It quickly scaled the App Store. Muse users told Business Insider they chatted with it to help plan trips and ace exams.
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The energy around the company is ebullient, as Alexandr Wang, Meta's chief AI officer, continues to post memes of Muse's squishy-looking mascot.
At Meta's Connect keynote event in September, Zuckerberg said Muse "has a novel business model."
"We believe that Muse will make you money, and we're standing behind this by making Muse free for a huge number of tokens with the expectation that over time, we will profit by taking a small fee from transactions," he said.
Muse could help justify the capex guidance for some investors. The stock was trading up 4.12% after-hours at the time of publication.