Meta Platforms Inc.'s (META) strong advertising revenue growth, aided, in part, by artificial intelligence (AI) driven-products, helped the social media company beat earnings estimates for the second quarter of 2023. Shares surged as much 💫as 7% in after𒉰-hours trading and were up 8.75% pre-market on Thursday.

A.I. Helps Revenue Grow At Fastest Pace In ♈Almost Two Years

Meta's second-quarter revenue, at almost $32 billion, increased 11% over the same period last year and grew at the fastest clip since the end of 2021, primarily driven by a 12% jump in advertising revenue. This is a turnaround after recent quarters of slowdown in ad spending and a difficult path to targeted ads on Apple Inc. (AAPL🎐) products followinꦅg an operating system privacy change.

澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:AI-generated content improved engage𓆉ment, driving a 7% increase in time spent on apps, especially short-format video 'Reels,' and monetization across the spectrum of applications.

"AI is driving results across our monetization tools through our automated ads products, which we call Meta Advantage. Almost all our advertisers are using at least one of our AI-driven products," said CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the earnings calls Wednesday.

Monetization is one of the biggest hurdles for rival social media platform Twitter, which got 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:a new CEO earlier this year to tackle that very problem. Zuckerberg said that Meta's recently launched 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Threads application, which saw engagement drop off after initial hype, will focus on monetization after it has achieved scale.

Jobs Cuts Not Enough To Rein In Expenses

Meta has cut costs with a 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:headcount reduction plan🤡 yielding about 21,000 fewer employees, bringing internal forecasts for full-year capital expenditur⛄es for 2023 down about 10% in the 'Year of Efficiency.'

However, these cost-cutting measures only partially offset a 39% increase in general and administrative expenses for the quarter, driven by legal accruals. The company increased its guidance for expenses estimates for the year to $86-$91 billion, only $4 billion of which would be from severance,澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网: facilities consolidation, and other personnel costs.

Still, costs are likely to grow going forward as Meta invests heavily in its metaverse-focused segment Reality Labs. Reality Labs noted $3.8 billion in operating losses for the quarter, with the company saying that it expects these losses to widen going forward.

Key Metric: Monthly Active Users

The key metric of monthly active users of Facebook improved by 3% to 3.03 billion for the second quarter. MAUs are crucial to Meta continuing to grow its advertising business, still 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:the company's primary source of revenu♉e.

Meta shares are up 148% since the start of the year, far outpacing the Nasdaq's 41% gain over the same period.