Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg finds tech’s new artificial intelligence religion after rise of ChatGPT

But you don’t survive in the tech world for almost two decades without being able to pivot, and Zuck has clearly sniffed the breeze. AI, he assured analysts, is a big part of Meta’s plans.

“We have a bunch of different work streams across almost every single one of our products to use the new technologies, especially the large language models and diffusion models for generating images and videos and avatars and 3D assets and all kinds of different stuff,” he said.

Sounds cool, right? But asked how generative AI could help Meta’s customers or generate revenue, Zuckerberg was less forthcoming, saying only he felt it could help “empower creators to be way more productive and creative” across Meta’s apps, such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. Zuckerberg promised more details about actual products in the coming months.

The ‘year of efficiency’

To his credit, Zuckerberg conceded it was important the tech world’s expectations of AI don’t get ahead of what remains developing technology. He also pointed AI technology remains expensive – generating images or videos or chat via AI costs “cents or fractions of a cent”.

“One of the big interesting challenges here also is going to be how do we scale this and make this work more efficient so we can bring it to a much larger user base,” Zuckerberg said.

That Zuck would even mention how expensive a technology was – especially a technology as hot as AI is right now – is testament to the fact he’s found the tech sector’s other religion: cost-cutting.

Meta shares soared almost 20 per cent in after hours trade after revenue for the December quarter beat expectations and Zuckerberg announced a $US40 billion ($56 billion) share buyback, along with lower operational and capital expenditure estimates for the year.

The stock is now up 72 per cent since it bottomed in November last year, and Zuckerberg has heard the market’s message on cost-cutting loud and clear, even declaring 2023 the “year of efficiency” inside the business, not long after shedding 13 per cent of his workforce.

“I just think we’ve entered somewhat of a phase change for the company. We just grew so quickly for like the first 18 years…it’s very hard to really crank on efficiency while you’re growing that quickly.”

Regardless of whether you agree that Meta couldn’t have cleaned up its cost base before now – costs rose 22 per cent across 2022 – there’s no doubt this is Zuckerberg telling the market he’s listened.

Pursuing loss-making ideas like the metaverse at all costs won’t wash in this new environment, and harder decisions about what actually matters will be vital.