Meta's year of aggressive AI moves: Here's what you need to know
2025-12-30_18-56 • 1m 37s
Contessa Brewer (Anchor)
00:00.000
Kenzi
Sigalos
has
more
in
today's
tech
check.
Hi
Mac.
Hey
Contessa.
Mackenzie Sigalos (Business News Reporter)
00:05.000
Meta
entered
2025
as
an
AI
winner,
but
as
year
wraps
the
company's
direction
has
started
to
look
less
coherent
and
very
expensive.
Insiders
and
industry
experts
telling
my
colleague
Jonathan
Vanian
the
strategy
has
become
scatter
shot
feeding
the
perception
that
Meta
has
fallen
Mackenzie Sigalos (Business News Reporter)
00:20.560
further
behind
rivals
whose
models
are
rapidly
gaining
adoption.
CEO
Mark
Zuckerberg
opened
the
year
predicting
Lama
would
become
the
most
advanced
model
in
the
industry.
By
the
October
earnings
call,
he
barely
mentioned
it.
The
next
Frontier
model,
internally
code-named
Mackenzie Sigalos (Business News Reporter)
00:36.320
Avocado,
has
been
pushed
into
Q1
of
2026.
And
the
AI
team,
it's
been
through
four
reorgs
in
six
months.
So,
this
is
Meta
buying
what
it
couldn't
build
fast
enough
for
the
street.
The
company
reportedly
paying
more
than
$2
billion
dollars
for
Manis
AI,
a
Singapore-based
developer
Mackenzie Sigalos (Business News Reporter)
00:53.360
of
general-purpose
AI
agents.
Manis,
which
was
founded
in
China,
launched
its
first
AI
agent
earlier
this
year
capable
of
executing
complex
tasks
such
as
market
research,
coding,
and
data
analysis.
Meta
has
spent
heavily
to
chase
OpenAI
and
Google
including
the
$14
billion
June
Mackenzie Sigalos (Business News Reporter)
01:11.320
deal
to
bring
in
scale
AI
founder
Alexander
Wang.
Investors
though,
they
are
still
waiting
for
proof
that
the
spending
translates
into
products
that
people
will
pay
for.
Manis
gives
Meta
a
more
direct
subscription
business
with
a
path
to
expand
tooling
across
WhatsApp.
But
Mackenzie Sigalos (Business News Reporter)
01:27.000
shareholders,
they
are
applauding
the
move
Meta
adding
around
$18
billion
dollars
in
market
cap
today
on
a
$2
billion
dollar
deal
so
far
more
than
paying
for
itself,
Contessa.
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