Meta’s secret weapon in the AI ​​race? All your personal data

You reported dead Better than expected Financial results during the fourth quarter 2025 earnings call on Wednesday, but it was CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for Meta AI in 2026 that really stood out. Zuckerberg said the company will spend large sums of money to build superpersonal intelligence.

It has one major advantage over competitors – a bunch of personal data about me, you and everyone we know.

“We are beginning to see the promise of artificial intelligence that understands our personal context, including our histories, interests, content, and relationships,” Zuckerberg said. “Much of what makes customers valuable is the unique context they can see, and we believe Meta will be able to provide a uniquely personalized experience.”

Meta’s long-term AI goal is personal superintelligence, a kind of holy grail: artificial intelligence Smarter From humans, and tailored to our individual experiences in products like smart glasses. To achieve this, the company expects to increase capital expenditures significantly, from $72 billion last year to $115 billion to $135 billion, attributing this increase to support for its artificial intelligence laboratories.

This money will be spent on research in two different places. Agentic AI, a technology that can handle tasks autonomously, is a big piece of the puzzle. The custom component is where Meta believes it has an advantage over competitors.

The company has spent years collecting, analyzing and monetizing a wealth of information from its users on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, effectively acting as a big data broker. Its targeted advertising business model revolves around monitoring our online activity, which is part of what made Meta the tech giant it is today.

Personal AI is what the industry sees as the next step: chatbots, agents, and other products that are connected and customized to our individual lives and needs. As a social media giant, Meta already knows a lot about us and what we might want to see from a personal AI.

This will work alongside the company’s plans to “integrate” LLMs with the recommendation systems that build our social media feeds. “Soon, we’ll be able to understand people’s unique personal goals, and customize feeds to show everyone content that helps them improve their lives in the ways they want,” Zuckerberg said.

Even if Meta hadn’t been collecting all our data for decades across its social media platforms, it might still have the advantage. Meta AI is everywhere on Facebook and Instagram, and the company doesn’t let you opt out of or turn off model training. (You can Mute Meta AIthough.)

YouTube and LinkedIn are almost certainly helping their parent companies, Google and Microsoft, too. However, Meta has a proven, top-notch track record of turning personal data into products and monetization. This is not necessarily a win for us. Previous dead AI integration into WhatsApp And plans for its use AI interactions to personalize ads It sparked a backlash. The battle for data privacy amid the development of data-hungry AI models is an ongoing battle.

Meta AI development in 2025 has been full of epic highs and lows. It made waves over the summer when it happened hired A series of top AI researchers, some poaching from other notable figures like OpenAI and Apple. But reports on Internal struggles and conflicts Strategies This quickly followed among new staff and the Meta-based FAIR Lab, stalling any major public releases. Meta was eventually discharged Hundreds of employees of its own artificial intelligence units. Yann LeCun, one of the early pioneers in the field of artificial intelligence, Leave His role as chief artificial intelligence scientist at the end of last year.

While Meta was struggling to find its footing, competitors were busy rolling out new models and innovations. latest google models, gemini 3, Display industry-leading thinking capabilities. OpenAI was released, trying to catch up with Google GPT-5.2. And Claude Anthropy took a turn in the sun with ease Atmosphere coding Capabilities. Google also recently released a version of Personal intelligence In search.

Don’t miss any of our unbiased technical content and lab reviews. Add CNET As Google’s preferred source.