Meta Seeks Payoff from AI Spending with New Push for Business Customers

Meta Platforms META -3.33%decrease; down pointing triangle is starting a new business focused on selling artificial-intelligence tools to enterprise customers, aiming to build on the momentum of its viral Muse personal assistant and deliver a return on its hefty spending.

The move will bring together sales of several of Meta’s existing AI tools including its Muse personal productivity agent, a coding tool, access to its top models and agents for businesses, the company said. Meta hired Chirantan “CJ” Desai, previously chief executive of document database company MongoDB, to run the new business line, reporting to CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg said in a statement that the new business line would “use our strengths that few other companies have: advanced models, leading agents, large-scale infrastructure, and years of working closely with many businesses.” The company didn’t provide further details on how the business would operate or price services.

Meta is entering a competitive market for business customers. Tools such as Anthropic’s Claude Code, OpenAI’s Codex and SpaceX’s Cursor have devout followings among enterprise users, and large labs face new competitive challenges from a crop of lower-cost Chinese open-weight models. Incumbents such as Google and Microsoft have long offered suites of workplace communication and productivity tools as well as cloud services.

Business agents on WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger services announced by Meta earlier this summer answer customer questions, book appointments and close sales, among other functions. The company has said it aims for the tools to eventually do market research and connect with tools to manage businesses’ calendars.

In August, Meta also launched a coding model that AI chief Alexandr Wang said was a cheaper alternative to those offered by competitors. It is priced roughly on par with lower-cost Chinese models.

Zuckerberg earlier this year said Meta might eventually sell computing power directly to large customers, a move that would further extend the company’s business beyond consumers.

The social-media company has been under increasing pressure to show investors how it plans to make money off its multibillion-dollar AI investments. Meta’s stock dropped 10% in after-hours trading in July after it raised the low end of its projected spending and Zuckerberg gave answers that investors deemed unsatisfying.

The popularity of Muse in recent weeks drew praise from some analysts who said it offers an opportunity to make meaningful non-ad revenue over time and a return on investment from its heavy capital expenditures. Shares rose more than 10% last week.