Meta (META.US) has become one of Microsoft Corporation's largest AI clients, but demand has yet to break through the tech circle, highlighting concerns about the future financial prospects of AI.

Meta Platforms (META.US) has become one of Microsoft Corporation (MSFT.US)'s largest artificial intelligence (AI) customers, highlighting the still highly concentrated demand for emerging AI technologies in the tech industry. According to an informed source, Meta spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually to access AI models through Microsoft Corporation's Azure cloud services. The source indicated that Meta uses trillions of tokens each week through this platformthis is a unit that measures AI computing consumption. A significant component of Microsoft Corporation's AI strategy is offering models from various providers through a marketplace platform called Foundry. As of July, Foundry had 100,000 customers. Microsoft Corporation's promotional materials frequently showcase clients from traditional industries such as manufacturing and transportation. However, sources reveal that most of Microsoft Corporation's largest AI clients are still other tech companies. One informed individual noted that other major clients also include Adobe (ADBE.US), the AI company Perplexity, and Sierra, a customer service AI startup co-founded by OpenAI chairman Bret Taylor. Microsoft Corporation relies particularly on a small number of tech industry clients. Its long-term partner OpenAI contributed about 70% of Microsoft Corporation's overall AI revenue in the most recent fiscal year. In addition to providing access to models, Microsoft Corporation also offers the AI assistant Copilot and leases AI-focused computing power. Individuals knowledgeable about the situation revealed that Meta is making significant investments in AI to assist in software development work. The company purchases model access through multiple platforms based on the availability of different models and usage costs. One informed person indicated that Meta's developers have utilized OpenAI's technologies through Foundry to help them evaluate the outputs of their in-house models. Andrew Bosworth, Meta's Chief Technology Officer, explained during the Big Technology podcast in July that, in addition to developing its own AI models, Meta also rents other leading models as part of its development process. Meanwhile, Meta is also building its own business to provide clients with access to various AI models, a so-called API service that may compete with Foundry in the future. This will help Meta reduce its spending on external services like Microsoft Corporation. Previously, Meta relied on Microsoft Corporation's technology, only to later replace it with in-house solutions. Starting in the late 2000s, Microsoft Corporations search engine Bing provided web search support for Facebook. By the end of 2014, Meta had stopped using Bing. In the years leading up to the advent of ChatGPT and the current AI boom, Microsoft Corporation also provided Meta with computing power for AI development. Since then, Meta has become one of the largest builders of AI data centers globally, supporting its AI model development. It is worth noting that the fact that Microsoft Corporation's largest AI clients are still other tech companies is not good news for some investors. For AI to truly meet market expectations, the technology must be widely applied across the entire economic system, rather than being limited to adoption by tech-savvy companies, especially given the concentrated revenues and potential pitfalls of cyclical business interactions that have plagued the tech industry in recent years.