Meta Platforms (META) will announce earnings for Q1 2026 later today, and expectations for the Facebook developer are sky high. Meta is poised for a strong earnings report, with expectations of 31% year-over-year revenue growth driven by AI monetization. Mark Zuckerberg’s company has ushered in a new AI-first initiative, spending millions on developing AI data centers and investing in AI firms like Anthropic.

During the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call in January, Zuckerberg declared 2026 as the year “AI starts to dramatically change the way that we work.”

Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik reiterated an outperform, or buy rating, for Meta with a price target of 900 in a client note Monday. “We like Meta to beat its strong Q1 revenue guidance, on resilient U.S. consumer demand and FX (foreign-exchange) tailwinds, though March softness, fading FX benefits, and ROAS (return on advertising spend) normalization could weigh on Q2 guidance,” Shmulik wrote. Further, the quarter “will reinforce that Meta is one of the cleanest AI monetization stories in Big Tech, where AI capex converts directly to measurable ad revenue uplift quarter-to-quarter,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives wrote to clients earlier this week.

Between the $115 to $135 billion AI capex plan and $105.9 million in insider share sales over three months, there’s enough caution in the picture to explain why the Meta stock price target keeps drifting lower. Reality Labs losses are still a factor too, and Meta stock analysis from Wall Street hasn’t stopped flagging them as a drag even as the AI narrative draws attention.