Analysts across Wall Street raised their Meta price targets after the technology giant showed in its latest earnings report that improving AI-driven advertising monetization helped offset concerns around higher operating and capital expenditures. The “Magnificent Seven” titan delivered fourth-quarter earnings of $8.88 per share on revenue of $59.89 billion . Both those figures came in above LSEG estimates of $8.23 per share in earnings and $58.59 billion in revenue. Meta also issued strong current-quarter guidance, expecting first-quarter sales to fall in the range of $53.5 billion to $56.5 billion. Consensus forecasts had estimated $51.41 billion. One sore spot on Meta’s earnings report was the $6.02 billion operating loss logged by its Reality Labs unit. Analysts had expected the business to record losses of $5.67 billion and sales of $940.8 million. Nonetheless, Wall Street analysts didn’t seem overly concerned with the losses, as Meta has indicated a switch in focus away from its metaverse and virtual reality businesses and towards growing its artificial intelligence business. Earlier this month, the company laid off over 1,000 Reality Labs employees. UBS noted that stronger signals of AI benefits will appear in 2026 for the company, while Citi said that Meta’s investments in AI are already delivering better results. “Although Meta’s 2026E Expense and CapEx guidance came in above Street expectations, better-than-expected 1Q26 revenue guidance given engagement strength and AI Ranking & Recommendation model improvements underscore our view that Meta’s investments in AI continue to deliver results,” wrote Citi analyst Ronald Josey. Meta’s AI investments already appear to be paying off when it comes to its advertising business. Analysts broadly applauded Meta’s ad growth as a win, with Bank of America analyst Justin Post highlighting that multiple AI models are driving usage and ad efficiencies. Bernstein analyst Mark Shmulik said called Meta ads a “rare win-win-win,” noting that ad revenues continue to push higher while ads remain accretive to the user experience and sellers continue finding their desired audiences more cost effectively than anywhere else. “The standout metric on the release was the ad revenue acceleration in 1Q. Management pointed to healthy demand and ad system improvements, coupled with high engagement growth on the major surfaces,” added Barclays analyst Ross Sandler. Analysts also appeared happy that Meta is growing its capital and operating expenditures, noting that that better revenue appears to offset these higher estimates. “Confident tone on revenue outlook, incl. material 1Q acceleration, offsets OpEx and CapEx guides both well above investor expectations. Don’t see much change to earnings expectations for ’26/’27, but higher growth likely warrants multiple expansion,” wrote Wells Fargo’s Ken Gawrelski. Shares of Meta popped 8% in early trading Thursday. Bottom line, analysts maintained their long-term bullish stance on Meta, with most raising their price targets. Here’s what analysts at some of Wall Street’s biggest shops had to say. Barclays: overweight rating, $800 price target The bank’s price target, up from $770, implies about 20% upside from Meta’s close. “After a jittery response to 3Q, META got back to business in 4Q. More impressive than the massive capex/opex growth is the ad rev trajectory eclipsing 30% in 1Q, papering over many investor concerns. META continues to set the pace for the digital ad industry, with AI option value still ahead.” Morgan Stanley: overweight, $825 Morgan Stanley’s forecast, up from $750, corresponds to upside of 23%. “We raise ’27 EPS and PT by 10% ($825, ~15% upside) as META’s investments in engagement/monetization are leading to the fastest growth in 4+ years (when the business was half the size it is now). ROIC is on display with the LLM product pipeline set to bud in ’26 for more long-term optionality ahead.” JPMorgan: overweight, $825 “Meta shares traded up 7% after-market, but we do expect some pushback that could make those gains tough to maintain. Our revenue and expenses both shift higher, but our GAAP EPS comes down 3-4% in 2026/2027, partly due to removing share repurchases and incorporating the 4Q debt raise.” Goldman Sachs: buy, $835 The bank’s target, raised from $815, calls for 25% upside going forward. “Against broader investor fears of an opex/capex guide which might have exceeded even last night’s forecasts, we see the implied forward revenue guide as indicating the company’s ability to compound revenues at a higher rate for longer than we had forecasted — this results in us raising our 2026 revenue forecast for the second time in the last month to now be ~$251bn. While lacking a full articulation of the forward product roadmap, we viewed management’s overall tone around AI as constructive that scaling of compute would open new/interesting business model opportunities across consumer and enterprise computing in the coming 12-18 months.” Wells Fargo: overweight, $849 Wells Fargo’s forecast, up from $754, is 27% above Meta’s Wednesday closing price. “1Q revenue guide well ahead of expectations, implying 6.5pts acceleration ex-currency at the high end, sets the tone for healthy revenue revision to offset higher OpEx and CapEx guides … Mgmt more forthcoming on ’26 revs outlook, implying growth of at least 23%-27% y/y, well above expectations for low-20s growth, renewing conversation on AI-fueled ad gains at Meta.” Citi: buy, $850 Citi’s forecast was approximately 27% higher than Meta’s closing price on Wednesday. “Although Meta’s 2026E Expense and CapEx guidance came in above Street expectations, better-than-expected 1Q26 revenue guidance given engagement strength and AI Ranking & Recommendation model improvements underscore our view that Meta’s investments in AI continue to deliver results … We were impressed with IG Reels watch-time 30%+ Y/Y in the U.S. as conversion rate growth accelerated and note newer ad products like Business AI, Threads, WA Paid Messaging, and Agentic Shopping are catalysts. Across the sector, Meta’s 4Q results and positive January trends bode well for online advertising platforms, and we highlight GOOGL, RDDT, and AMZN.” UBS: buy, $872 UBS’ target, up from $830, equates to 30% upside. “With 2026 Operating Expense and Capital Expenditures guidance parameters now set, we submit that 2026-2027 EPS revisions should now skew asymmetrically to the upside, as Meta is set to start realizing the business and product benefits management had previously articulated in terms of its AI revenue pillars … While our OpEx and CapEx estimates do move higher for 2026 and 2027, just on the basis of better ad monetization, we are able to underwrite greater revenue dollar accretion to drive an absolute increase in our EPS estimates. We hence expect investors to rotate capital back into META shares and we maintain our Buy rating. The 4Q25 results in our view serves as a clearing event and the path to lighting up new and significant revenue vectors becomes more clear.” Bank of America: buy, $885 The bank’s forecast, up from $810, implies about 32% upside from here. “Investment cycles are rarely constructive, but we learned several positives on the call: 1) AI is driving returns, and more for Meta than peers, 2) Meta is building an infrastructure powerhouse, but can self-fund (we est. positive ’26 FCF) and is setting limits on spend, 3) new models/products are coming, and Meta is thinking beyond ad revenues long-term, & 4) RL losses expected to peak this year. At AH price of $713, stock is at 21x our revised 2027 EPS (vs historical avg. of 21x), and this includes potential $10+/share in RL and Gen-AI investment spend. We see Meta’s ads business as attractively valued.” Bernstein: outperform, $900 Bernstein’s forecast, up from $870, corresponds to upside of around 35%. “Meta ads are a rare win-win-win: these ads are accretive to the user experience; sellers find their desired audiences more cost effectively than anywhere else; and Meta’s ad revenues continue to push higher — while +24% Y/Y was only modestly above consensus, a 1Q revenue guide that points to 30%+ Y/Y at the midpoint and an implied FY26 revenue guide that sets the floor at ~24% Y/Y bulldozes even the most bullish expectations. The company spent much of the call supporting the durability of core improvements backed by a multi-year AI-product roadmap.”