Meta slated to reported second-quarter earnings after the bell

• Meta is set to report its second-quarter earnings on Wednesday, with analysts eyeing any changes to the company's costs and related guidance amid CEO Mark Zuckerberg's recent AI hiring blitz.
• Investors are likely to be monitoring any comments from Zuckerberg about his company's recent AI spending and how that might benefit its core online advertising business.
• Last week, Google posted strong-quarterly earnings results that beat on the top and bottom.

Meta is set to report its second-quarter earnings on Wednesday, with analysts eyeing any changes to the company's costs and related guidance amid CEO Mark Zuckerberg's recent artificial intelligence hiring blitz.

Here's what analysts polled by LSEG are expecting:

• Earnings per share: $5.92 expected
• Revenue: $44.8 billion expected

Investors are likely to be monitoring any comments from Zuckerberg about his company's recent spending on AI and how that technology might benefit Meta's core online advertising business.

Meta kicked off its AI hiring bonanza in June when it invested $14.3 billion into Scale AI, landing the data-annotating startup's CEO Alexandr Wang to co-lead the new Meta Superintelligence Labs as the company's chief AI officer. Zuckerberg undertook the AI strategy overhaul to help the company regain momentum after lukewarm developer response to its Llama 4 AI model, CNBC reported Tuesday.

Cantor analysts wrote that they do not expect Meta's AI hiring spree will affect the company's 2025 projections for total expenses, estimated to fall in the range between $113 billion and $118 billion. If anything, Meta's AI hiring blitz could move “the target above the low end,” the Cantor analysts wrote.

Zuckerberg said in July that the company would invest “hundreds of billions of dollars” into computing infrastructure for its AI endeavors, but the company hasn't officially revised its 2025 capital expenditures since April. That month, Meta said its 2025 capital expenditures would come in the range of $64 billion to $72 billion, which was an increase from its previous outlook of $60 billion to $65 billion.

Analysts at BofA Securities said in a research note published Friday that there are signs that Meta could post second-quarter sales at or above the high end of the company's previous guidance of $42.5 billion to $45.5 billion for the period.

Those positive signs include an increase of advertising spending from brands during the quarter and Google's strong quarterly earnings results from last week, the analysts wrote, which implies that Meta, second only to Alphabet in digital advertising, could also post solid results.

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