Meta Platforms Inc is selling consumer subscriptions to its Meta AI chatbot for the first time, a key step toward building a business that would help offset hundreds of billions of dollars in artificial intelligence investments by the company.
The new subscriptions come in two tiers. A basic tier, priced at US$7.99 (RM31.79) per month and called Meta One Plus, is for people who frequently use Meta AI to generate images and videos or rely on it for extended reasoning, according to a company spokesperson.
A more advanced tier, called Meta One Premium, will cost US$19.99 (RM79.31) per month and include the same set of features as Meta One Plus but in greater quantities, the spokesperson added. The Meta AI subscription is rolling out in Singapore, Guatemala and Bolivia to start, with plans for more countries later.
People can continue to use the Meta AI chatbot for free for image and video generation, but will eventually run into a limit with repeated use. Meta declined to share usage limits for each level, but said the Premium plan provides meaningfully more usage than the lower tier.
Meta shares, which had been trading down slightly on Wednesday, jumped more than 3% on the news. The stock is down roughly 4% so far this year.
Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg has been under pressure from investors to demonstrate that his expensive bet on AI will ultimately deliver meaningful revenue. Zuckerberg has pledged to spend at least US$600bil (RM2.38 trillion) on AI infrastructure over the next few years, and the company is currently building a data centre in Louisiana that will cost at least US$200bil (RM796bil). During Meta’s earnings call in April, investors baulked at the company’s announcement that its capital expenditures this year would be more than initially estimated.
Meta has long argued that its AI investments are already paying off in the form of highly targeted and efficient advertising, which is improved thanks to AI models. But the company is also looking for other ways to recoup its AI spending, and consumer chatbot subscriptions have become popular with several other AI competitors, including Alphabet Inc’s Google and OpenAI. Both rivals offer similarly priced subscription tiers.
Subscriptions for Meta’s products, which have been collectively rebranded under a program known as Meta One, are a growing focus at the social media giant as the company looks to diversify its business, which is almost exclusively driven by advertising.
Meta has been testing subscriptions for WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook, and plans to expand those offerings globally, Helen Ma, Meta’s head of subscriptions, said in an interview. Those subscriptions are in the US$2.99 (RM11.86)- and US$3.99 (RM15.82)-per-month price range, depending on the market, and users will also be able to buy them as a bundle, Ma added. People who buy a subscription to Meta AI will also get access to the app-specific offerings.
Meta is also rolling out updated subscription products for businesses and creators. Those include two new tiers: Meta One Essential at US$14.99 (RM59.64) per month, and Meta One Advanced at US$49.99 (RM198.86) per month. The more expensive tier includes access to human support for a user’s Instagram and Facebook pages, which has historically been a pain point for small businesses using Meta’s products.
Meta hopes to sell access to AI agents alongside these offerings in the future, Ma said.
Subscriptions are currently a very small portion of Meta’s total business. The company reported US$1.29bil (RM5.13bil) in "non-advertising revenue” in the first quarter, a bucket that includes subscription fees but also hardware sales like Meta AI glasses and virtual reality headsets. Its advertising business, by contrast, reported over US$55bil (RM218.79bil) in sales for the same period. – Bloomberg
