Meta Platforms reported a 27% year-on-year increase in advertising revenue to $59.4 billion for the second quarter of 2026, as growing adoption of its artificial intelligence-powered advertising tools and stronger advertiser demand boosted performance across its platforms.
Total revenue for the quarter rose 28% to $60.8 billion, driven primarily by the company's Family of Apps business, which includes Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads. Revenue from the segment increased 28% to $60.4 billion.
Meta said ad impressions grew 14% during the quarter, while the average price per advertisement increased 12%, reflecting higher engagement and improved monetisation across its platforms.
Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg said the company's investments in artificial intelligence are increasingly contributing to business growth.
"Overall, the scale and reach of our community across our apps is pretty remarkable, and it gives us a strong platform for delivering new innovations to billions of people. We are now at a point where our investments in AI are accelerating every major part of our core business. They're improving the experience for people using our apps, driving better performance for advertisers, and helping our teams build new experiences and ship faster," Zuckerberg said.
Meta said more than 9 million small businesses now use at least one of its AI-powered creative tools to build advertising campaigns.
During the quarter, the company introduced Meta Generative Recommender, an advertising system that uses large language models to analyse advertising content alongside user preferences rather than evaluating advertisements individually. Meta said the system is designed to improve ad targeting and campaign performance.
The company said early testing of large language models to better understand user preferences led to a 1% increase in app event conversions on Instagram. Improvements to Facebook's ad ranking models also resulted in an 8.3% increase in ad clicks and a 15.7% improvement in conversions.
Meta added that adoption of its AI-powered image generation tools, which allow advertisers to create multiple advertising creatives from existing content, more than doubled during the quarter. The company also introduced an end-to-end AI creative solution that converts campaign performance insights into new advertising assets while preserving brand identity. Meta said its upcoming Muse Image model is expected to further enhance creative generation capabilities for advertisers.
Beyond advertising, Meta launched Meta One, a subscription offering that provides users with access to additional AI-powered features across its apps.
Operating income for the quarter declined 8% year on year to $18.8 billion as the company continued investing heavily in artificial intelligence infrastructure. Capital expenditure reached $31.1 billion, including principal payments on finance leases, while free cash flow fell to $784 million. Meta's market capitalisation stood at approximately $1.48 trillion.