Historically, stocks that split have outperformed the S&P 500 (^GSPC +0.37%) by 13 percentage points during the year following the company's stock-split announcement. Meta Platforms (META +1.38%) has never split its stock, but the company is certainly a candidate given that shares have appreciated 1,570% since its 2012 IPO.
In general, Wall Street experts think the stock is undervalued. Among 74 analysts, Meta has a median target price of $850 per share, which implies 33% upside from its current share price of $640. Read on to learn why this potential stock-split stock is worth owning as the artificial intelligence revolution unfolds.
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Meta Platforms is using artificial intelligence to boost social media engagement
Meta Platforms is the second largest ad tech company in the world due to its portfolio of industry-leading social media properties. Collectively, more than 3.5 billion people visit Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and/or WhatsApp every day. That ability to engage users and collect consumer data makes Meta an indispensable advertising partner for countless brands.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is at the core of Meta's growth strategy. "Our AI recommendation systems are delivering higher quality and more relevant content," CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts on the third-quarter earnings call. Improvements to those systems boosted time spent on Facebook and Threads by 5% and 10%, respectively. Also, engagement with Instagram videos increased 30%.
Grand View Research estimates ad tech spending will increase at 14% annually through 2030. But Meta's investments in artificial intelligence could drive market share gains and improve operational efficiency, which means its revenue and earnings could grow faster than the overall market. Indeed, Wall Street estimates Meta's earnings will increase at 15% annually over the next three years.
Meta Platforms has an adjacent opportunity in smart glasses and superintelligence
Meta Superintelligence Labs is a business unit dedicated to achieving superintelligence, meaning an AI system that is not only fundamentally smarter than humans, but also has the capacity to improve itself by learning without human intervention. There are many ways the company could monetize such a system, but smart glasses top the list.
"Personal devices likes glasses that understand our context because they can see what we see, hear what we hear, and interact with us throughout the day will become our primary computing devices," Mark Zuckerberg wrote in July. Meta already dominates the market. It accounted for 73% of smart glasses shipments in the first half of 2025, up from 66% in the second half of 2024, according to Counterpoint Research.
The company recently launched its first pair of augmented reality (AR) glasses called Ray-Ban Meta Display, which overlay the real world with a holographic, full-color display on the right lens. It integrates with the conversational assistant Meta AI, but future versions could integrate a superintelligence system. Such a product could eventually become a material source of revenue.
NASDAQ: META
Key Data Points
Why Meta Platforms stock is worth buying right now
Meta reported encouraging third-quarter financial results that beat estimates on the top and bottom lines. Revenue increased 26% to $51 billion. GAAP earnings declined 83% due to a one-time tax charge, but would have increased 20% without that charge.
Meta plans to invest even more aggressively in artificial intelligence. CFO Susan Li said the company expects the increase in capital expenditures to be "notably larger in 2026 than 2025." That unsettled traders and caused the stock to drop 15% after the earnings report.
That creates a buying opportunity. Meta is well positioned to gain share in advertising and it has a substantial long-term opportunity in smart glasses. The current valuation of 28 times earnings is quite reasonable against that backdrop, especially when Wall Street anticipates annual earnings growth of 15% in the next three years.
