CNBC reported on May 30, 2026 that Meta is trying again to earn meaningful revenue outside digital advertising, this time by charging for Meta AI features while nearly all quarterly sales still come from ads.

Subscription tests

  • Meta One Plus: $7.99 per month.
  • Meta One Premium: $19.99 per month with more compute for larger requests, per CNBC.
  • Testing begins next month in Singapore, Guatemala, and Bolivia.
  • Meta will continue offering a free Meta AI tier, CNBC said.

Advertising still dominates

  • Meta's latest earnings showed nearly 98% of $56.3 billion in first-quarter revenue from advertising, according to CNBC.
  • The piece recounts prior non-ad setbacks: Portal hardware, Reality Labs operating losses exceeding $80 billion since late 2020, the Libra crypto effort, and Workplace closing.

Cloud and capex context

  • Mark Zuckerberg told shareholders a cloud computing business is "definitely on the table," CNBC reported, potentially competing with AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud if Meta has excess AI infrastructure capacity.
  • Meta raised 2026 AI capex guidance to $125 billion–$145 billion, up from a prior $115 billion–$135 billion range cited in the article.

Analyst projections (third-party)

  • Wolfe Research analysts estimated subscriptions could add about $3 billion in 2027 revenue, growing to $16 billion by 2030, CNBC reported—still small versus Meta's $200+ billion annual revenue base.
  • Max Willens of Emarketer told CNBC that ad-dominant platforms struggle to sustain enthusiasm for much smaller secondary businesses.

Primary source: CNBC — Meta struggled selling anything other than ads. Will AI be different? (May 30, 2026).