Meta Platforms Eyes $100 Billion AI Chatbot Opportunity by 2030

MENLO PARK, Calif. — Meta Platforms, the tech giant behind Facebook and Instagram, could unlock a $100 billion revenue opportunity by 2030 through its AI-powered chatbot tools for businesses, according to a recent analysis by William Blair analyst Ralph Schackart.

Meta has been developing AI tools to help businesses create and train their own chatbots, which can handle customer support and sales. The company launched an alpha test in September 2023 and expanded it to thousands of businesses earlier this year. With over 200 million businesses on its apps, Meta has a vast market to monetize these tools.

Schackart predicts that businesses will increasingly pay Meta to offload WhatsApp conversations to AI chatbots. By 2030, he estimates that WhatsApp users will engage in an average of 1.6 conversations with business AI chatbots daily, generating $45 billion in revenue at $0.04 per conversation. If Meta auctions chatbot conversation pricing, the opportunity could exceed $100 billion.

Meta has historically struggled to monetize advanced business features. Its WhatsApp Business Platform, part of the “other revenue” line item, generates minimal revenue compared to its ad business. However, Schackart suggests that Meta could integrate AI chatbots with its advertising products, such as click-to-message ads on Facebook and Instagram, to scale the feature and improve long-term results.

AI-powered chatbots could enable businesses to process more customer interactions and close sales with lower overhead. This would increase the value of click-to-message ads, allowing Meta to introduce auction pricing for chatbot conversations. Meta may adopt a hybrid approach, combining free messages for ads with paid AI chatbot interactions after 72 hours.

Meta is investing heavily in AI, with capital expenditures projected between $38 billion and $40 billion for 2024. The company expects significant growth in these expenditures in 2025. While upfront costs are high, Meta aims to reduce AI application costs over time, making the technology more profitable.

If Meta achieves the $100 billion revenue target by 2030, it could see strong profit margin expansion, even with the costs of developing and deploying AI. Schackart estimates that this could drive Meta’s shares up by approximately 67%. However, AI chatbots are just one of many revenue opportunities for Meta, which reported $163 billion in revenue in 2024 and is projected to reach $186 billion in 2025.

Meta’s AI investments and its potential to dominate the business chatbot market position the company as a long-term winner in the AI space. As businesses increasingly adopt AI to improve operations, Meta’s tools could become a critical component of their strategies.