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META Expands Muse for Small Businesses: Will Ad Growth Accelerate?
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Key Takeaways
META expands Muse to automate small-business sales, marketing, financial and administrative tasks.
META's Q2 2026 ad revenues rose 27% to $59.4B as impressions gained 14% and ad prices increased 12%.
Muse subscriptions could add a revenue stream as Meta expands AI agents across its business ecosystem.
Meta Platforms (META - Free Report) is now offering Muse with new capabilities to help small businesses automate day-to-day work. Muse for Small Business can connect with Facebook Pages, Instagram professional accounts and Meta ad accounts, as well as third-party platforms such as Shopify, Stripe, QuickBooks, Canva, Slack, Klaviyo and Zoom. Businesses can use the AI agent to analyze sales and marketing performance, create growth plans, improve ads and content, review financial performance and handle routine administrative tasks. Meta said actions such as publishing, sending or spending still require user approval. Muse is free for most functionality, while additional capabilities are available through subscription plans.
The expansion strengthens Meta’s efforts to make AI a more integral part of how small businesses operate rather than limiting AI to ad creation. The company is connecting Muse directly with a company's social accounts, advertising data, storefronts, financial systems and productivity applications. This potentially increases engagement with its business ecosystem while making Facebook and Instagram more central to merchants’ workflows. The ability of Muse to analyze campaign performance and draft new campaigns also complements Meta’s existing AI-powered advertising tools.
META is benefiting from advertising growth. In the second quarter of 2026, Family of Apps advertising revenues increased 27% year over year to $59.4 billion. Ad impressions rose 14%, and the average price per ad increased 12%, reflecting engagement growth and better advertising performance. More than 9 million small businesses were already using at least one of Meta’s generative-AI creative tools, while adoption of image-generation capabilities more than doubled sequentially. Meta’s Advantage+ end-to-end advertising solutions also reached an annual revenue run rate of more than $75 billion. The company expects Muse Image to further improve advertisers’ ability to produce high-quality, on-brand creatives at scale.
Muse for Small Business also fits Meta’s broader strategy of developing AI agents for enterprises and merchants. Meta Business Agents were already being used by more than one million businesses each week across WhatsApp and Messenger in the second quarter, with Instagram rollout underway. The company ultimately envisions these agents evolving into a "business-in-a-box" offering and expects monetization to include subscriptions, volume-based pricing and performance-linked models. The addition of subscription plans for Muse therefore offers another potential revenue stream beyond advertising.
META Faces Tough Competition in the Ad Space
Meta is facing stiff competition from the likes of Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) and Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) in the ad domain.
Alphabet is challenging META through the growing strength of Search, YouTube and Gemini-powered advertising tools. In the second quarter of 2026, Google Search and Other advertising revenues increased 17% year over year to $63.3 billion, while YouTube advertising revenues rose 13% to $11.1 billion. Alphabet is integrating Gemini across its ads infrastructure to improve ad quality, advertiser tools and AI-powered user experiences, strengthening its ability to capture both performance and brand advertising spending. More than half of Google’s SMB customers globally are also using AI to create or optimize advertising creatives.
Amazon is challenging Meta in digital advertising by leveraging its high-intent commerce ecosystem and growing use of AI across sponsored ads. Amazon’s advertising revenues increased 26% year over year to $19.8 billion in the second quarter of 2026, with Sponsored Products remaining the largest offering. The company is also inserting sponsored prompts into agentic shopping experiences such as Alexa+ and Alexa for Shopping. Shoppers clicking sponsored prompts convert 48% more often and spend 21% more on average than those who do not, underscoring Amazon’s ability to connect advertising directly with purchase activity. Amazon’s Ads Agent also automates campaign setup and targeting, helping advertisers achieve an 8% lower cost per impression and 6% lower cost per acquisition.
Meta shares have returned 9.8% year to date, underperforming the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector’s return of 21.7%.
META Stock’s Price Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Meta stock is trading at a premium, with a forward 12-month price/sales of 6.29X compared with the broader sector’s 6.15X. META has a Value Score of C.
META’s Valuation
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 earnings is pegged at $31.39 per share, down by 0.4% over the past 30 days, suggesting 33.6% year-over-year growth.
View the Zacks #1 Rank List
Image: Bigstock
META Expands Muse for Small Businesses: Will Ad Growth Accelerate?
Key Takeaways
Meta Platforms (META - Free Report) is now offering Muse with new capabilities to help small businesses automate day-to-day work. Muse for Small Business can connect with Facebook Pages, Instagram professional accounts and Meta ad accounts, as well as third-party platforms such as Shopify, Stripe, QuickBooks, Canva, Slack, Klaviyo and Zoom. Businesses can use the AI agent to analyze sales and marketing performance, create growth plans, improve ads and content, review financial performance and handle routine administrative tasks. Meta said actions such as publishing, sending or spending still require user approval. Muse is free for most functionality, while additional capabilities are available through subscription plans.
The expansion strengthens Meta’s efforts to make AI a more integral part of how small businesses operate rather than limiting AI to ad creation. The company is connecting Muse directly with a company's social accounts, advertising data, storefronts, financial systems and productivity applications. This potentially increases engagement with its business ecosystem while making Facebook and Instagram more central to merchants’ workflows. The ability of Muse to analyze campaign performance and draft new campaigns also complements Meta’s existing AI-powered advertising tools.
META is benefiting from advertising growth. In the second quarter of 2026, Family of Apps advertising revenues increased 27% year over year to $59.4 billion. Ad impressions rose 14%, and the average price per ad increased 12%, reflecting engagement growth and better advertising performance. More than 9 million small businesses were already using at least one of Meta’s generative-AI creative tools, while adoption of image-generation capabilities more than doubled sequentially. Meta’s Advantage+ end-to-end advertising solutions also reached an annual revenue run rate of more than $75 billion. The company expects Muse Image to further improve advertisers’ ability to produce high-quality, on-brand creatives at scale.
Muse for Small Business also fits Meta’s broader strategy of developing AI agents for enterprises and merchants. Meta Business Agents were already being used by more than one million businesses each week across WhatsApp and Messenger in the second quarter, with Instagram rollout underway. The company ultimately envisions these agents evolving into a "business-in-a-box" offering and expects monetization to include subscriptions, volume-based pricing and performance-linked models. The addition of subscription plans for Muse therefore offers another potential revenue stream beyond advertising.
META Faces Tough Competition in the Ad Space
Meta is facing stiff competition from the likes of Alphabet (GOOGL - Free Report) and Amazon (AMZN - Free Report) in the ad domain.
Alphabet is challenging META through the growing strength of Search, YouTube and Gemini-powered advertising tools. In the second quarter of 2026, Google Search and Other advertising revenues increased 17% year over year to $63.3 billion, while YouTube advertising revenues rose 13% to $11.1 billion. Alphabet is integrating Gemini across its ads infrastructure to improve ad quality, advertiser tools and AI-powered user experiences, strengthening its ability to capture both performance and brand advertising spending. More than half of Google’s SMB customers globally are also using AI to create or optimize advertising creatives.
Amazon is challenging Meta in digital advertising by leveraging its high-intent commerce ecosystem and growing use of AI across sponsored ads. Amazon’s advertising revenues increased 26% year over year to $19.8 billion in the second quarter of 2026, with Sponsored Products remaining the largest offering. The company is also inserting sponsored prompts into agentic shopping experiences such as Alexa+ and Alexa for Shopping. Shoppers clicking sponsored prompts convert 48% more often and spend 21% more on average than those who do not, underscoring Amazon’s ability to connect advertising directly with purchase activity. Amazon’s Ads Agent also automates campaign setup and targeting, helping advertisers achieve an 8% lower cost per impression and 6% lower cost per acquisition.
META’s Share Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates
Meta shares have returned 9.8% year to date, underperforming the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector’s return of 21.7%.
META Stock’s Price Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Meta stock is trading at a premium, with a forward 12-month price/sales of 6.29X compared with the broader sector’s 6.15X. META has a Value Score of C.
META’s Valuation
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 earnings is pegged at $31.39 per share, down by 0.4% over the past 30 days, suggesting 33.6% year-over-year growth.
Meta Platforms, Inc. Price and Consensus
Meta Platforms, Inc. price-consensus-chart | Meta Platforms, Inc. Quote
Meta currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.