Meta Platforms posted a 27% year-on-year rise in advertising revenue to $59.4 billion in Q2 2026, fuelled by stronger advertiser demand and growing uptake of its AI-powered advertising tools across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads.
The Family of Apps business – spanning Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads – grew 28% to $60.4 billion, forming the bulk of Meta’s total quarterly revenue of $60.8 billion, itself up 28% year-on-year. Ad impressions climbed 14%, while average price per ad rose 12%, pointing to both higher engagement and stronger monetisation.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Meta’s AI investments are now visibly strengthening its core business, improving user experience, advertiser performance, and internal team velocity alike.
The company said more than 9 million small businesses are now using at least one of Meta’s AI creative tools. A key launch this quarter was Meta Generative Recommender, an LLM-based ad system that evaluates advertising content and user preferences jointly rather than in isolation, improving targeting and campaign outcomes.
Early results show a 1% lift in app event conversions on Instagram, while Facebook’s upgraded ad ranking models drove an 8.3% rise in ad clicks and a 15.7% jump in conversions. Adoption of Meta’s AI image-generation tools for ad creatives more than doubled during the quarter, alongside a new end-to-end AI creative solution and the upcoming Muse Image model.
Meta also debuted Meta One, a new AI-powered subscription offering. Operating income fell 8% to $18.8 billion, with capex at $31.1 billion and free cash flow dropping to $784 million amid continued AI infrastructure spend. Market cap stood near $1.48 trillion.
