Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META) is giving Wall Street a brand new reason to rethink its AI strategy. The company's Muse AI agent is picking up users, and that adoption is opening up potential revenue opportunities across subscriptions, advertising, commerce, and small-business services. Suddenly, all those billions Meta poured into AI look less like a black hole and more like a down payment.

Jefferies Sees Multiple Revenue Paths

Jefferies analyst Brent Thill told CNBC on Thursday that Muse is showing encouraging early adoption across shopping, travel, planning, and other everyday tasks. In other words, people are actually using it for stuff they'd otherwise do themselves.

Thill sees potential revenue coming from subscriptions, advertising, and commerce. He also pointed to Meta's roughly 200 million small businesses as a juicy opportunity to offer AI agents that help companies manage their operations. That's a lot of potential customers who already live inside Meta's ecosystem.

But Thill isn't handing out gold stars just yet. He believes Meta still needs to prove these new revenue streams can generate sustainable returns and fully justify its large AI investments. And he noted that broader Muse adoption could also drive significantly higher compute demand, which is a nice way of saying the spending isn't done.

Evercore Expects Rapid Muse Adoption

Evercore's Mark Mahaney told CNBC on Wednesday that he expects Muse could reach 100 million users within six to 12 months. That's a big number, and it comes with a bigger implication: consumer-facing companies may need to build their own AI agents or partner with services like Muse as users demand simpler, more personalized online experiences.

Mahaney, however, remains skeptical that Muse will capture all the economic value from commerce conducted through AI agents. Fair enough. Being the agent doesn't always mean being the one who gets paid.

Dan Ives Says Meta AI Spending Is Starting To Pay Off

Yorkville Ives' Dan Ives told CNBC on Tuesday that investors previously discounted Meta's massive AI spending because they couldn't see clear results. Muse changes that narrative, he says, by giving Meta a consumer-facing product that can tap its roughly 3.5 billion users.

Ives also sees Meta's user data and distribution network strengthening its position as AI value increasingly shifts toward data and real-world applications. It's the classic Meta playbook: own the audience, own the distribution, and let everyone else fight over the margins.

Goldman Sachs Sees Muse Supporting A Higher Valuation

Goldman Sachs Asset Management's Brook Dane told CNBC on Wednesday that Muse provides the first clear example of Meta creating a new growth opportunity from its AI investments. Dane believes Meta's history of monetizing user growth could allow it to generate revenue from Muse over time.

He said Muse's early success is already helping investors reassess Meta's valuation, although Meta must still contend with competing products from Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google and other AI companies. Competition, as always, is undefeated.

Dane also said Muse could drive significant infrastructure demand. He estimated that 100 million Muse users could require about 1.6 to 1.7 gigawatts of compute capacity. And he said each gigawatt could require roughly $50 billion in capital spending. Do the math and that's a lot of money flowing into the AI supply chain, including chips, memory, and networking infrastructure.

Dane said the optical networking segment could be particularly well positioned as data centers shift toward co-packaged and near-packaged optics. He highlighted Lumentum Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:LITE) as one company that could benefit, saying its revenue could grow faster than the market expects over the next two years as AI infrastructure requires more optical components.

Top ETF Exposure To Meta Platforms

• Invesco AI and Next Gen Software ETF (NYSE:IGPT): 8.43% Weight
• Natixis Loomis Sayles Focused Growth ETF (NYSE:LSGR): 8.12% Weight
• Invesco Nasdaq Internet ETF (NASDAQ:PNQI): 7.89% Weight

Significance: Because META carries such a heavy weight in these funds, significant inflows or outflows will likely force automatic buying or selling of the stock.

Meta Price Action

META Stock Price Activity: Meta Platforms shares were down 2.60% at $724.77 during premarket trading on Thursday, according to market data.