Chicago, IL – March 23, 2026 – Zacks.com announces the list of stocks featured in the Analyst Blog. Every day the Zacks Equity Research analysts discuss the latest news and events impacting stocks and the financial markets. Stocks recently featured in the blog include: Meta Platforms META, Alphabet GOOGL and Amazon AMZN.
Here are highlights from Friday’s Analyst Blog:
META Taps AI to Boost Safety Features: Ad Revenue to Grow?
Meta Platforms is strengthening security and safety features across Facebook and Instagram with the launch of a new AI tool. This is expected to boost user engagement, driving advertising revenues that contribute the majority of revenues (98.6% of Family of Apps revenues). META’s focus on integrating AI into its platforms — Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and Threads — is driving user as well as advertiser engagements. AI is heavily dependent on data, of which META has a trove, driven by its more than 3.58 billion daily users, including 2 billion daily actives each on Facebook and WhatsApp.
The social networking giant is rolling out the Meta AI support assistant, a tool designed to provide reliable, 24/7 support for nearly any support issue at any time. The tool will be available within the Help Center on Facebook and Instagram on desktop apps for iOS and Android. The new Meta AI support assistant is designed to help resolve account problems for users from start to finish. The tool can act on users’ requests, including reports of scams, impersonation of accounts, or problematic content, management of privacy settings, resetting passwords and updating profile settings, among others. The tool can respond to requests typically in under five seconds.
Meta Platforms also started rolling out the support assistant to people who need help logging into their Facebook and Instagram accounts, starting with select cases in the United States and Canada. It eventually expects to expand to more countries and other types of account access situations soon. META has been experimenting with more advanced AI systems for content enforcement and has found them effective in reducing scams, identification and prevention of impersonation of celebrity and other high-profile people accounts, violation of adult sexual solicitation content, fake site spoofing and other violations.
The new tools are expected to boost META’s share in the digital advertising market, where it is facing stiff competition against the likes of Alphabet and Amazon. Meta Platforms expects total revenues between $53.5 billion and $56.5 billion for the first quarter of 2026. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenues is currently pegged at $55.34 billion, suggesting 30.8% growth from the year-ago reported figure.
META Faces Tough Competition in Ad Space
Alphabet’s Search business is benefiting from AI infusion. The company has been actively embedding AI, especially within Search, to enhance user experience, provide better AI-focused features and consequently improve ad performance. AI Overviews and AI Mode are driving overall queries and commercial queries, thereby driving monetization opportunities. Alphabet’s Google advertising revenues increased 13.6% year over year to $82.28 billion and accounted for 72.3% of total revenues in the fourth quarter of 2025.
Amazon’s rich partner base is allowing advertisers to buy ad space on Netflix, Spotify and SiriusXM Media through Amazon Ads, thereby expanding its advertising reach beyond its own properties. The strong performance in advertising reflects successful AI-powered optimization of the platform and growing market share in digital advertising. In the fourth quarter of 2025, advertising services sales increased 22% year over year to $21.3 billion.
META’s Share Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates
Meta Platforms shares have plunged 8% year to date, underperforming the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector’s drop of 4%.
Meta Platforms stock is trading at a premium, with a forward 12-month price/sales of 5.92X compared with the Zacks Internet Software industry’s 3.89X. META has a Value Score of C.
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for first-quarter 2026 earnings is pegged at $6.67 per share, unchanged over the past 30 days, suggesting 3.7% year-over-year growth.
Meta Platforms, Inc. price-consensus-chart | Meta Platforms, Inc. Quote
Meta Platforms currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Inherent in any investment is the potential for loss. This material is being provided for informational purposes only and nothing herein constitutes investment, legal, accounting or tax advice, or a recommendation to buy, sell or hold a security. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. It should not be assumed that any investments in securities, companies, sectors or markets identified and described were or will be profitable. All information is current as of the date of herein and is subject to change without notice. Any views or opinions expressed may not reflect those of the firm as a whole. Zacks Investment Research does not engage in investment banking, market making or asset management activities of any securities. These returns are from hypothetical portfolios consisting of stocks with Zacks Rank = 1 that were rebalanced monthly with zero transaction costs. These are not the returns of actual portfolios of stocks. The S&P 500 is an unmanaged index. Visit /performance for information about the performance numbers displayed in this press release.
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