The rise of DeepSeek has sparked concern across the AI industry, but Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, remains unfazed. During Meta’s fourth-quarter earnings call, he reassured investors that DeepSeek’s advancements only reinforce Meta’s AI strategy. While acknowledging DeepSeek’s innovations, Zuckerberg emphasized that Meta plans to integrate these developments into its Llama models.
The emergence of DeepSeek led to a sell-off in AI stocks, with fears that AI models may require less computing power moving forward. However, Zuckerberg dismissed concerns about Meta’s massive infrastructure investments, stating that computing resources will shift from training models to enhancing their reasoning capabilities. He believes that higher intelligence levels and service quality will still demand significant computational power.
Meta is preparing to launch Llama 4, which will feature multimodal and agentic capabilities. Zuckerberg expects Meta’s AI assistant to surpass one billion users this year, strengthening the company’s dominance in the AI space. He also took a subtle jab at competitors like OpenAI and Anthropic, pointing out that Meta has a sustainable business model to support its $60 billion AI investment—something many startups lack.
Additionally, Zuckerberg praised President Donald Trump, highlighting the new administration’s commitment to American technology leadership. Interestingly, just before the earnings call, news broke that Meta had settled Trump’s lawsuit over his account ban, agreeing to pay $25 million, mostly allocated to his presidential library.
Despite concerns over AI competition and policy shifts, Meta continues to thrive financially. The company reported a record-breaking revenue of $48.39 billion for Q4 2024, marking a 22% increase from the previous year. Net profits soared by 43%, reaching $20.8 billion. CFO Susan Li confirmed that recent content policy changes have had no significant impact on ad revenue. Daily active users across Meta’s platforms grew to 3.35 billion, a 5% year-over-year increase.
With these strong financials and an ambitious AI roadmap, Zuckerberg remains confident in Meta’s long-term vision. While DeepSeek may have made waves, Meta is staying ahead in the AI race with strategic investments and cutting-edge innovations.