Usman Salis
⬤ Meta Platforms is being recognized as a potential long-term AI leader, not because it has the best AI models, but because it can deliver AI products to billions of users instantly. The company's biggest edge is distribution—getting AI features into the hands of massive audiences with almost no barriers. This matters more as AI models themselves become increasingly similar across the tech industry.
⬤ The numbers tell the story: Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp each have around 3 billion monthly users, making them some of the world's biggest digital platforms. Together, more than 3.5 billion people open at least one Meta app every single day. That's more reach than YouTube, TikTok, Snapchat, X, and Reddit combined, giving Meta an unmatched ability to launch AI features at scale.
⬤ The key insight here is that distribution might matter more than raw AI power as different models start performing similarly. Meta's massive user base creates a built-in advantage for weaving AI into social feeds, messaging, content tools, and advertising systems. Instead of building standalone AI products, Meta is embedding intelligence into services that billions already use every day.
⬤ This changes how we should think about AI leadership. When the performance gap between models shrinks, the ability to deploy, improve, and monetize AI at scale becomes what separates winners from everyone else. Meta's success will depend on whether its AI research teams can keep their models competitive while taking full advantage of that unprecedented distribution. In a world where reach increasingly determines impact, Meta's platform scale is its secret weapon.
Usman Salis
