Here is a rewritten version of the text with minimal loss of content: --- This is The Takeaway from today’s Morning Brief, which you can subscribe to receive in your inbox every morning, along with: - The chart of the day - What we’re watching - What we’re reading - Economic data releases and earnings It’s certainly nice to appear on popular podcasts to reveal a more human side. But what if the goal is to grow the entire advertising market through AI and, as a result, reshape the composition of global GDP? That’s the vision of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Wall Street seems to be on board. For investors still seeking clarity on how massive AI investments will deliver returns, Zuckerberg offered the clearest answer yet: AI will reinforce Meta’s core business.

In fact, it is central to their business. Sign up for the Yahoo Finance Morning Brief By subscribing, you agree to Yahoo’s Terms and Privacy Policy. Zuckerberg explained on the company’s earnings call this week: “Businesses used to create their own ad content and choose their target audiences, but AI has already helped us better target and identify audiences interested in products—often better than many businesses themselves—and this capability keeps improving. ” “If we realize this vision, in the coming years, I believe AI-driven increases in productivity will cause advertising to become a significantly larger portion of global GDP than it is today. ” Though bold, this statement seems well-calibrated, sidestepping the exaggerated AI takeover claims made by other tech enthusiasts that remain unproven. Yet, this isn’t a modest ambition. In the past, Zuckerberg earned Wall Street’s confidence by proving that his trillion-dollar advertising engine was still effective, and investors accepted Meta’s substantial AI expenditures. But now, the situation—and for Big Tech as a whole—is different. Amid widespread concerns of an economic downturn, Meta isn’t positioning AI as a mere supplement to its operations, but as integral to its core targeted advertising model. The company’s continually rising AI investment is not just an R&D experiment, as some cautious investors wary of the Metaverse suspect, but a strengthening of Meta’s fundamental strengths. “While Meta’s investments in generative AI have unsettled some investors who question the returns, " Morningstar equity analyst Malik Ahmed Khan wrote on Thursday, “we observed further evidence of generative AI monetization within Meta’s ad business. ” --- Let me know if you'd like it adjusted for tone or length!