Mark Zuckerberg opened the Meta Connect product showcase nine months after a string of scandals that had made him the most disliked tech chief in America.
Three minutes into his keynotes, Zuckerberg spoke about the spirit of creation: “Building is an act of love … we pour our hearts and our souls into what we make.” He then unveiled a lineup that focused almost entirely on AI: a new agentic chatbot called Muse, a range of smart glasses, and a Tamagotchi‑ish wearable that lets users talk to an invisible companion.
Even as the company announced the next generation of its favourite product, Zuckerberg omitted any reference to the platforms that fund its fortunes—Instagram and Facebook—highlighting the paradox of a booming business built on a brand in the dock.
Meta has been mired in a series of legal actions for years, with accusations that its design encourages addictive use among young people. Internal emails, corporate documents and whistle‑blower testimony have been used by lawyers and prosecutors to support claims that the company knowingly built addictive product features.
In a referendum that quoted a Pew Research study, two‑thirds of Americans held an unfavourable view of Zuckerberg. Combined with a $942 million fine in New Mexico for failing to warn about the dangers its platforms posed to children, the company’s public image has suffered.
Yet Meta’s core metrics show growth. Users of Instagram and WhatsApp rose 3% YoY. Fourth‑quarter revenues were up 28% compared with 2025, driven by ad revenue that reached $60.8 billion and $15.9 billion in profit. The company’s debt towered at $83.7 billion, but its CFO has said the firm can turn the AI and metaverse bets into cash flow.
Muse launched last month with a splash: after a New York Times reporter tried it for two weeks, the assistant could order groceries, place calls to an insurer and log spending in an exported spreadsheet. The app has surpassed five million downloads and three million weekly active users, eclipsing early adoption rates of ChatGPT in North America.
Over the next months Meta plans to roll out a personal virtual machine that would store sensitive data in a “self‑contained” environment inside its cloud, promising even Meta will not be able to see customers’ information. The firm has also released two‑hour daily time‑limits for teens, night‑time blocks and muted notifications during school hours as part of an 18 billion‑dollar settlement with 48 U.S. states.
Nonetheless, critics challenge that data sharing will continue. The Social Reckoning, a new film by Aaron Sorkin featuring Jeremy Strong as Zuckerberg, cast him as a villain who refuses to accept responsibility for the platform’s harms to young people. Some commentators see it as Meta’s “Big Tobacco” moment, suggesting that the company’s success will now hinge on a broken trust deficit.
Many users appear willing to trade privacy for convenience. “If the consumer sees the trade‑off as beneficial, they’ll keep it going,” says industry analyst Patrick Moorhead. The platform’s power lies in its staying‑power: despite heavy criticism, its user base remains immense.
Meta’s future may therefore rest on whether it can convert users’ willingness to share data into a renewed sense of trust—no small feat after the record‑sized lawsuits and public backlash that have marked the last few years.
