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Mark Zuckerberg Predicts How Billions Will Use AI in 5 Years' Time
0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says it is "extremely unlikely" that billions of people will not have a personal AI agent within the next five years, outlining a future where artificial intelligence works around the clock to manage everything from health and finances to relationships and household tasks
Speaking during Meta's second-quarter earnings call on Wednesday, Zuckerberg described personal AI assistants as one of the company's biggest opportunities as it pours billions of dollars—$31.1 billion in the quarter—into new models, infrastructure and data centers. During the same call, he announced that Meta's free cash flow collapsed by 91 percent and its stock tumbled nearly 10 percent after-hours due to these surging AI costs.
"I think that it's extremely unlikely, if you look out five years from now, that you don't have billions of people with a personal agent that understands your goals, and that is just working on your behalf 24/7 to achieve your goals," Zuckerberg told investors.
He said future AI agents could help people manage their finances, improve their health, organize their homes, strengthen relationships and assist with career development.
The comments came as Meta reported strong revenue growth and detailed an aggressive expansion of its artificial intelligence efforts, including new AI models, business tools and infrastructure projects.
Zuckerberg framed personal AI agents as the next major consumer technology platform.
According to the Meta chief, one challenge is making agents simple enough for everyday users, rather than limiting them to technically skilled people willing to spend time configuring complex systems. He said successful personal agents would need to "just work" and be easy enough for billions of people to adopt.
Meta has already begun positioning WhatsApp and its messaging platforms at the center of that strategy. Zuckerberg said WhatsApp is currently the leading platform for interactions with Meta AI and argued messaging apps will become increasingly important as people interact with multiple AI agents.
The company also highlighted business-focused agents. Meta said more than one million businesses are already using its AI business agents on WhatsApp and Messenger each week, with expansion underway on Instagram .
Meta is not alone in betting heavily on AI agents. Google has made customized AI agents a cornerstone of its evolving search and productivity products, allowing users to create assistants tailored to specific tasks and workflows. Meanwhile, Anthropic's Claude Code has gained popularity among developers using AI agents to write and review software.
Across the technology industry, leading firms are increasingly moving beyond traditional chatbots toward systems capable of taking actions on behalf of users, such as conducting research, managing schedules, completing purchases or carrying out complex work assignments.
Most people are familiar with AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Meta AI, which answer questions and generate content in response to prompts.
An AI agent goes a step further. Rather than simply providing information, it can carry out tasks on a user's behalf. For example, where a chatbot may give a restaurant recommendation, an AI agent would be able to book a table.
During Meta's earnings call, Zuckerberg said future AI agents could help users manage their health, finances, homes, relationships and careers, acting as assistants that work on their behalf around the clock.
Zuckerberg's vision depends on a huge expansion of computing infrastructure.
During the earnings call, Meta announced a strategic venture with BlackRock to develop a new 1-gigawatt data center in El Paso, Texas, as part of the company's growing AI buildout. Meta executives repeatedly emphasized the importance of expanding capacity to support future AI products and services.
Meta already operates one of the largest data center networks in the United States, with facilities across states including Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana and others. The company says those facilities underpin services used by billions of people worldwide.
The rapid expansion of AI infrastructure has also drawn scrutiny from environmental advocates, local communities and AI researchers. In El Paso, residents, local officials and community groups have called for greater transparency over Meta's planned data center, questioning its potential impact on water supplies, electricity demand, air quality and household utility costs in a region already facing long-term drought pressures.
Some residents have publicly asked whether scarce groundwater can sustainably support both population growth and hyperscale AI facilities, while Representative Veronica Escobar has urged Meta to hold public listening sessions so residents can receive clear answers about the project's environmental footprint. More broadly, environmental groups have raised concerns about the energy consumption, water use, wildlife impacts and strain that large-scale data centers can place on local resources as companies race to expand AI infrastructure.
The rapid buildout has also fueled calls for stronger AI governance. A public letter signed by more than 1,100 employees and researchers from companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta urged governments to develop mechanisms to "deliberately pace the frontier of automated AI development," warning that AI capabilities could "rapidly accelerate beyond our ability to understand or control the resulting systems." The signatories argued for stronger governance tools, independent oversight and the ability to slow frontier AI development if safety measures fail to keep pace with increasingly capable models.
The debate received further attention as OpenAI CEO Sam Altman met lawmakers in Washington on Wednesday to discuss upcoming AI models and broader artificial intelligence policy.
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