Why Does Meta Lead Ad Revenue by 2028?

Alex Kantrowitz reads economist Steve Howe's chart, which puts Meta ahead on ad revenue in 2028 by a good margin after Google led in 2024, because Google has not figured out how to target ads well within AI mode while Meta pulls away on ad revenue despite lagging on large language models. He is not sure everyone assumes Google will win the AI race. Google has the number one model on the benchmarks, a new model called carbon released the same week.

Howe wrote that everyone assumes Google will win the AI race, a complete 180 from a year ago, and left open whether winning AI is commercially good for Google. Amazon has gone from a distant third to a company challenging Google for second, although still somewhat behind.

Meta has struggled with large language models and has not shifted its entire experience to make it AI, yet Meta is pulling in the ad money. Google is making the move and has fallen behind on the chart.