Meta Platforms, Inc. apps and its Meta AI chatbot. The move could help offset some of the costs of its massive spending on artificial intelligence.
Naomi Gleit, head of product at Meta, said in a video posted to Instagram on Wednesday that the company is starting to roll out paid subscription options to users of its social platforms. Facebook Plus, Instagram Plus, and WhatsApp Plus will come with enhanced features, Gleit said.
“These subscription plans offer richer ways to express and connect across our apps with more fun features to be added,” she said.
Gleit added that Meta is testing other subscriptions, including plans that give people who use Meta AI, “more to work with, more capacity, bigger, more complex requests, and more room to create.”
According to a Meta spokesperson, Meta AI will remain free for everyday use. But for features that help users do heavier creative and reasoning work, the company is testing a monthly usage limit with the option to subscribe for more.
Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that the new subscriptions will come in two tiers. The basic tier called Meta One Plus will be $7.99 per month, and a more advanced tier—Meta One Premium—will cost $19.99 per month. A Meta spokesperson confirmed these details to Barron’s.
Shares gained 3.3% on Wednesday to $632.79. Wall Street seemed pleased that the company was introducing a new way to bring in revenue as costs to power artificial intelligence skyrocket.
Meta stock has dropped 4.1% this year, far underperforming the S&P 500’s 9.9% raise. The Facebook parent is among the tech companies collectively spending hundreds of billions of dollars on AI this year alone. Meta said when reporting first-quarter earnings on April 29 that its forecasted range forcapexis $135 billion at the midpoint.
Meta has been working on ways to bring down costs amid all the increased AI spending. This included laying off around 8,000 people, or roughly 10% of its staff.
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