Meta Platforms beat the Street. Here's why analysts are bullish on the stock
Meta Platforms ‘ latest quarterly earnings blew past expectations, helped by its push into artificial intelligence. Now, Wall Street analysts say the stock has much more room to run. The Instagram and WhatsApp parent posted revenue of $64.6 billion in the third quarter versus the $63.37 billion expected by analysts polled by LSEG — 26% above the same period a year ago. Earnings came in at $3.83 per share, up from $1.05 last year. Meta’s push into AI helped boost its stock more than 11% in the past three months. Meta unveiled its Muse AI personal assistant in September, driving up shares almost 27% in one month, their best month in roughly four years. The stock was down more than 2% in pre-market trading Thursday. META YTD mountain Shares of Meta are up nearly 6% in 2026. In response to Wednesday’s results, several Wall Street analysts said Muse is poised to drive value while Meta’s other AI initiatives also boost the stock. “Muse is off to a great start and represents a game changer for the META narrative,” Barclays analyst Ross Sandler said in a note to clients. “Looking to 2027, management expects strong overall revenue growth, with continued runway for AI to improve the core ads recommendations/conversions, and emerging AI revenue streams beginning to contribute across subscriptions, APIs and enterprise offerings.” Barclays has an overweight rating on Meta. Sandler raised his price target on shares to $880 from $780 — 26% above the Wednesday close. Here’s what else analysts are saying about Meta: Goldman Sachs: Buy rating Analyst Eric Sheridan has an $860 price target on shares, up from $725. The new target suggests 23% upside from Wednesday’s close. “Over the long-term, we maintain our positive view and conviction that current stock performance can move toward our 12-month price target. Despite a recent positive re-rating in the stock (META +30% over the last 2 months vs. SPCX +1%), we still see a positive risk/reward skew on current shares when measured against the core business operating momentum and the early indications of AI scaling (products + returns). We continue to see META mgmt as focused squarely on the core building blocks of growth around operating themes at the intersection of AI and spatial computing across the existing Family of Apps, new standalone apps, and the hardware/software/platform potential around Reality Labs. Further, we see META as well-positioned against several long-term secular growth themes against the coverage universe.” JPMorgan: Overweight Analyst Doug Anmuth listed his price target on Meta to $940 from $920, implying 35% upside. “The core advertising business continues to show strong growth, backed by AI ad improvements and video. Importantly, this was the first quarter where [Meta Superintelligence Lab] investments and Meta’s vision for personal superintelligence were met w/early product momentum across Muse Wonder, the Muse AI agent, and enterprise opportunities in Meta Model API & Muse Code.” Morgan Stanley: Overweight “META’s core runway is long, Muse is budding and Meta has a plan to scale it (and other call options) profitably with improving compute efficiency… META [is the] cleanest consumer GenAI winner.” Citigroup: Buy Analyst Ronald Josey raised his price target to $905 from $895, implying 30% upside from Wednesday’s close. “We are incrementally positive on shares of Meta following 3Q26 results as we believe Meta is entering into an AI product super-cycle with multiple monetization tailwinds. Key here, Meta’s growing compute capacity gives it the ability to launch multiple new products and services and press its first- mover advantage across Personal Agents. We are impressed with Muse adoption whereby 10M users have set up a Muse, 25% return daily, and given shopping is the most common use case, we believe there is a clear line-of-sight to multiple monetization levers across subscriptions, transaction take-rates, & enterprise. This as core IG & FB Reels time spent/user reached ATHs as Meta’s LLMs surfaced more relevant content, likely a key driver to 4Q revenue guidance coming in better-than-expected. While 2027 remains an investment year (particularly as Muse ramps), we believe Meta’s AI products are well positioned.” Deutsche Bank: Buy “It is becoming increasingly clear that Meta’s investments in AI are yielding ever increasing returns for advertisers, which in turn is supporting not only top-line durability, but, in fact, advertising revenue growth acceleration. Moreover, by leveraging [large language model] oriented AI infrastructure, Instagram and Facebook hit all-time- highs in engagement, while the company’s ad systems continued to drive conversion improvements supporting monetization efficiency. Importantly, we think these are still in the very early innings and should prove durable drivers of topline growth for the foreseeable future.” Wells Fargo: Overweight “We see META as an accelerating growth story with emerging upside AI options in messaging, ad tools and new consumer applications. Combined with a newfound appetite for efficiency, we believe META should be a steady earnings compounder at a reasonable multiple.”
