NEW YORK, May 27, 2026, 4:01 PM EDT
- Meta shares rose late Wednesday after reports that the company is rolling out paid tiers for its social apps and Meta AI.
- The stock outpaced a nearly flat broader market, with investors looking for signs that AI spending can turn into new revenue.
- The main risk remains whether subscriptions can matter enough against Meta’s much larger advertising business and heavy AI capex.
Meta Platforms shares climbed late Wednesday after the Facebook parent moved deeper into paid subscriptions for Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and Meta AI, giving investors a fresh revenue story as the company spends heavily on artificial intelligence.
Meta was recently up about 3.9% at $636.43, after touching an intraday high of $638.35, while the Invesco QQQ Trust, a proxy for large Nasdaq technology shares, was little changed. Alphabet rose modestly and Snap also gained, leaving Meta ahead of several ad-linked technology peers in late trading.
Why it matters now: investors have been pressing Meta to show how its large AI outlays will produce revenue beyond advertising. Bloomberg reported Wednesday that Meta is selling consumer subscriptions to its Meta AI chatbot for the first time, with a Meta One Plus tier at $7.99 a month and a Meta One Premium tier at $19.99 a month.
Barron’s reported that Naomi Gleit, Meta’s head of product, said in an Instagram video that Facebook Plus, Instagram Plus and WhatsApp Plus would offer users “richer ways to express and connect,” while Meta also tests AI plans that give users “more to work with.” A Meta spokesperson said Meta AI would remain free for everyday use, Barron’s reported. Barron’s
The move marks a small but visible shift for a company still built mainly on ads. Subscriptions could give Meta a steadier stream of revenue and help pay for capital expenditure, or capex — money spent on long-lived assets such as data centers, chips and servers.
That spending has been the stock’s sore point. Meta said last month it expected 2026 capital expenditure of $125 billion to $145 billion, up from an earlier $115 billion to $135 billion range, as it builds AI infrastructure. Reuters reported then that the shares fell more than 6% in extended trading after the higher forecast.
Meta’s core business is still strong. The company reported first-quarter revenue of $56.31 billion, up 33% from a year earlier, and said ad impressions across its apps rose 19%. Family daily active people, a measure of people using at least one of its apps each day, rose 4% from a year earlier to 3.56 billion, though it slipped from the previous quarter.
Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg called it a “milestone quarter” and said Meta was “on track to deliver personal superintelligence to billions of people,” according to the company’s April earnings release. Meta Investor
The competitive backdrop is not quiet. Alphabet, which owns Google, remains a benchmark for investors judging whether AI can lift search and advertising revenue, while Snap is a smaller social-media peer trying to squeeze more money from users and advertisers. Reuters reported after Meta’s April results that D.A. Davidson’s Gil Luria said Meta had failed to impress investors in the context of stronger results from Google parent Alphabet.
Governance was also in view. Meta’s annual meeting was scheduled for Wednesday at 10 a.m. Pacific time, with shareholders voting on directors, auditor ratification and 10 shareholder proposals, including items tied to child safety, generative AI chatbot data and other platform risks.
But the rally could fade if paid plans prove too small to offset AI spending, or if users resist another subscription. Legal and regulatory risk also hangs over the stock: Meta warned last month that youth-safety scrutiny and additional U.S. trials could ultimately result in a material loss, Reuters reported.
For now, the market read was simple enough. Investors bought the idea that Meta may have found one more way to charge for AI, even if the big money still comes from ads.
