Image source: Getty Images
The last 12 months have been a market-beating ride for shareholders of Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) stock. The social media and advertising enterprise has been exploring new technologies in recent years like artificial intelligence (AI) and the metaverse. While the latter hasn’t played out as well as management hoped, the group’s foray into AI has been delivering some pretty impressive results.
Meta doesn’t disclose the exact revenue or profit figures from its AI products. However, a quick glance at the group’s performance since 2022 perfectly demonstrates the return on investment AI has provided.
Following the privacy changes by Apple on iOS devices in 2022, Meta’s revenue growth stalled, with top-line income falling by 1% during the year. Don’t forget, digital advertising makes up the bulk of Meta’s income so the loss of being able to have highly targeted ad campaigns hurt the business.
But thanks to investments into AI, it wouldn’t take long before the business could resume offering highly targeted advertisements even with higher levels of privacy across devices and users. In 2023, sales grew by 16%, then 22% in the following year. And even across the first quarter of 2025, double-digit gains continue to pour in as AI features become central to all of Meta’s products and platforms.
Does that mean even more impressive growth is on the horizon? If so, how much could a £5,000 investment today transform into 12 months from now?
Here’s what the experts are saying
Of the 72 institutional analysts following this business, 64 have either rated the company as a Buy or Outperform. That’s certainly a strong vote of confidence in Meta’s AI journey. And even beyond the world of advertising, the company has begun exploring new monetisation methods to diversify and improve.
For example, WhatsApp’s becoming increasingly used for commerce and customer service across enterprises. At the same time, the group is seeking to monetise its AI models, enabling other companies to build their own assistants or chatbots.
There are a range of opinions about where the Meta stock price could move over the next 12 months. However, the consensus forecast points towards a price target of $698.50 per share. Compared to current levels, that’s roughly a 10% gain. If that proves accurate, that means a £5,000 investment today could grow into £5,500 by this time next year.
What could go wrong?
Management’s attempts to diversify its revenue stream haven’t been all that successful in the past. And even in 2025, 98% of Meta’s revenue comes from selling and serving digital ads. That could prove problematic during economic downturns as businesses cut marketing budgets and consumers spend less on products and services.
There’s also the question about Meta’s continued push to develop the metaverse. Its Reality Labs segment has spent over $69bn since the fourth quarter of 2020, yet there remains no sign of profitability. Pairing all this with the firm’s history of being hit with antitrust and privacy regulatory action, future growth could prove more challenging if the pressure continues to mount up.
So far, Meta has proven to be quite resilient to its external threats. But with a lot of the AI-related growth expectations already baked into its valuation, I think there are other investment opportunities worth exploring in 2025.
