Episode summary
Meta Seizes Its Moment to Spend Aggressively in the AI Race | Bloomberg Intelligence
Bloomberg Intelligence
· · 22 min · Hosts: Paul Sweeney, Norah Mulinda · Guests: Kurt Wagner, Damian Garde, Kunjan Sobhani, Geetha Ranganathan
Summary
Meta’s earnings dominated the discussion, with the host and a guest framing the company’s 11.5% stock jump as a vote of confidence in its AI strategy. The guest said Meta is not late to AI because it has been building models for years, mostly in-house, and is now using them to improve ad targeting and recommendations. The key argument was that Meta can fund aggressive AI spending from a cash-rich ads business, while its existing audience across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp gives it a distribution advantage that other AI players still have to build.
The conversation on Eli Lilly centered on why Mounjaro’s heart- and stroke-prevention study mattered, even though it only showed non-inferiority versus Trulicity rather than superiority. The guest said Lilly’s GLP-1 franchise remains the company’s biggest growth driver, with obesity and diabetes products powering valuation expectations and a possible oral GLP-1 seen as the next major catalyst.
Qualcomm and Comcast were described as more mixed stories. Qualcomm’s results had positives in IoT, auto, and Android, but investors remain focused on Apple share loss and limited near-term excitement. Comcast’s subscriber losses were still severe, but better than feared after Charter’s weak report, producing a relief rally even as broadband competition from fiber and fixed wireless stays intense.
Key takeaways
- Meta’s ad business is still the core engine, and the guest argued that cash flow is being redirected into AI spending without damaging momentum.
- The guest said Meta’s AI edge comes from distribution: Meta AI already has roughly a billion monthly users across Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
- Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro matched Trulicity on heart and stroke prevention, but the market had hoped for superiority, not just non-inferiority.
- The guest said Lilly’s obesity and diabetes franchise is the company’s biggest growth driver, with an oral GLP-1 viewed as a major future catalyst.
- Qualcomm’s diversification into auto, IoT, PC and XR is progressing, but the guest said Apple-related revenue loss still clouds the near-term story.
- Comcast’s broadband losses were ugly but less bad than feared, while competition from fiber and fixed wireless remains the main structural headwind.
Notable quotes
“they are taking all the profits from that and they're, you know, funneling them into AI”
“it didn't prove to be superior, which was kind of the if not expectation and kind of hoped for outcome here”
“and that's what I'm seeing the rest of the street saying as well”
“the problem is that they're going to continue to lose subscribers”
How the episode opens
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Nora, Melinda, Paul Sweeney, we're live here on our Bloomberg Interactive Brokers Studio. We're streaming live on YouTube as well, so check us out there. As John was just reporting, uh, Meta, big big uh, earnings numbers last night after the close.
Stock up 11.5% here today. All-time high, 52- week high, whatever you want to look at it. We're on a $2 trillion market cap watch here.
1.95 trillion as we speak. Let's check in with Kurt Wagner, tech reporter for Bloomberg News. He's in Denver, Colorado.
He's worked out this scam. I have no idea how he did it, but it's a good gig for Kurt. Kirk, talk to us about Meta here.
I some people feel like, you know, Meta might be a little late to the AI party. I don't think that. And I don't know, Zuckerberg was talking pretty aggressively about the spending there.
What' you take away?
I I don't think they're late at all. I don't think that they um have offered some of the same products that some of their rivals like OpenAI uh and Anthropic have, uh Google. So, they have been building AI models for, you know, basically a decade.
they mostly kept them inhouse. Um they use them, you know, in this case they've been talking a lot about how they're using them to improve their own uh ad targeting and their own content recommendations. And so while they're not out selling access to their models in the way that rivals are, they're still building them.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- meta ai spending
- diabetes drug trial results
- qualcomm earnings and smartphone chip demand
- tariffs and semiconductor outlook
- comcast broadband subscriber trends
Companies and tickers mentioned
- META
- LLY
- QCOM
- CMCSA
- Meta Platforms Inc.
- Eli Lilly & Co.
- Qualcomm Inc.
- Comcast Corp.
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Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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