Meta is drowning in expenses for artificial intelligence, while Alphabet is breaking revenue records. Microsoft somewhat disappoints expectations!

Last night on Wall Street brought a real rollercoaster. Meta, Alphabet, and Microsoft — three pillars of Big Tech — announced their quarterly results, but investor reactions were extremely varied.

Meta: AI worth billions and a massive drop in shares

Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) has announced a gigantic increase in spending on artificial intelligence. This year's capital expenditure (capex) budget is set to be 70–72 billion dollars, up from the previous range of 66–72 billion. However, this is just the beginning – the company warned that spending in 2026 will be “significantly larger” than that planned for 2025, which is already set to increase by 30 billion.

Mark Zuckerberg defended the decision, saying:

“This is the right strategy – it’s better to aggressively build the infrastructure now to be ready for the most optimistic scenarios.”

The market did not share this enthusiasm. Meta's shares dropped by over 8% in after-hours trading, resulting in a loss of about 160 billion dollars in market capitalisation – this is the second largest drop in the company's history.

Alphabet: first time over 100 billion in revenue

Google (more precisely Alphabet) has surprised very positively – quarterly revenue exceeded 100 billion dollars for the first time in history. Net profits also surpassed analysts' forecasts, and investors responded enthusiastically. Alphabet's shares rose by over 6% after the market closed, making the company the biggest winner of reporting Wednesday.

Microsoft: solid but not euphoric

Microsoft also delivered better-than-expected financial results, however, growth in the Azure segment – key for cloud and AI – did not meet the most optimistic market expectations. This slight disappointment came despite recent news of a new agreement with OpenAI, which is set to increase computing power for artificial intelligence models.

As a result, Microsoft's shares fell by 3.6%, even though the results themselves were decent.

What does it all mean?

• Meta is going all in — putting everything on AI, risking short-term drops in stock prices.

• Alphabet confirms its dominance in advertising and cloud services, gaining the trust of investors.

• Microsoft remains stable, but the market expected a bigger “AI boom” effect.

Investors apparently prefer sensible expansion (Alphabet) today over “all-in on AI” (Meta).

Summary

Meta went all in on AI and got hit by the market. Alphabet celebrates record revenues, while Microsoft — despite solid results — has to contend with rising expectations.