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(Excerpt from Mark Zuckerberg's dialogue at the Stripe 2025 Annual Conference)
On May 7, at the Stripe Sessions conference in San Francisco,
Facing the founder of the global payment giant Stripe, Zuckerberg didn't talk about the metaverse or show off Llama 4. He opened with a new business principle:
Any merchant only needs to tell us their goal and budget, and leave the rest to AI.
✍️ Section 1 | Not Optimizing Ads, But Closing Deals For You
Zuckerberg called it a "Business Outcome Machine," and the core goal is:
"From user inputting goals → connecting bank accounts → outputting results."
✍️ Section 2 | AI Doesn't Work For You, It Runs The System Automatically
In this conversation, Zuckerberg repeatedly emphasized a phrase that is easily overlooked:
"execution friction"
This leads to a core question:
If execution itself is taken over by AI agents, what competitiveness will businesses have left in the future?
The answer may only be two words: Definition.
Defining goals, defining strategies, defining "what counts as a good result."
Because the AI agent will complete everything you assign it, but the quality of the goal itself still determines the final value.
This is also a transformative moment for business participants, who must shift from "assigning tasks" to "rewriting systems."
✍️ Section 3 | Why Has Southeast Asia Taken A Step Ahead Instead?
In his conversation at this Stripe Sessions, Zuckerberg said something that many people might overlook but is very impactful:
"Thailand and Vietnam are actually the 10th and 11th ranked countries in Meta's revenue. Their GDP rankings are far behind, but the activity level of their business messaging systems is world-leading."
Because the process is still stuck in the manual stage, AI can take over the entire business chain in one go, directly entering the agent era.
What is also worth our consideration is:
Are the millions of small and medium-sized businesses in China not extremely similar to those in Thailand and Vietnam?
They also rely on private domain traffic, customer service, and manual conversations to complete sales. Once these actions can also be replaced by AI, will advertising agencies, media buying teams, and community customer service positions be among the first to be eliminated?
This is not a distant future. Zuckerberg has already hinted:
Soon, every business will have an AI agent, just like today every business has a website, email, and WeChat account.
Southeast Asia just seized this opportunity first.
Just because you haven't started using it doesn't mean it hasn't started replacing you.
✍️ Section 4 | Meta Is Not A Social Company, But A Business Infrastructure Provider
This is not a media summary, but a strategic direction clearly implied by Zuckerberg at the event.
At the Stripe Sessions event, the host directly asked:
"You are now doing AI models, connecting to payment networks, and also doing open source. What exactly is Meta doing?"
Zuckerberg did not say "we are a social company," nor did he return to the old user growth logic,
He spoke of a more fundamental path choice:
Our goal is to enable every business to have an AI agent that is not just for advertising, but also helps businesses connect with customers, complete transactions, and even handle payments throughout the entire process.
This sounds like an "AI tool combination," but what Zuckerberg is actually building is: A business execution engine that businesses can directly call and that can settle transactions in a closed loop.
✅ Meta's "AI Capability Puzzle" is already formed:
As you can see, Meta's main focus is no longer "enhancing social interaction," but building a set of AI business infrastructure that businesses can use out-of-the-box.
More accurately, it is trying to become something similar to AWS:
AWS provides computing power,
Stripe provides payments,
and Meta will provide a "transaction hub" that can achieve business goals.
Zuckerberg broke down this logic in the interview:
"We are currently providing services to users through Apple and Google's systems, but this is inherently a limitation. So we must take an earlier step to build the next platform."
This is not a product strategy to "improve user experience"; it is an operational layer gamble: seizing control of the next generation platform.
✍️ Section 5 | What You Need To Rebuild Is Not Advertising, But The Entrance
You are still manually executing processes, while others are already handing over goals for AI to achieve transactions.
In the future, business revenue will no longer come from the conversion chain you build yourself, but from who controls the AI-driven "set goal → transact" entrance.
If you haven't started rebuilding your path entrance, you are likely just "an API caller" for Meta or other platforms.
The end of advertising is not stopping creativity, but the transaction path being taken over by other AI platforms.
🧭 You Are Not The One Who Writes Ads, But The One Who Defines Goals
Many people think that AI is rewriting the advertising industry.
But after watching Zuckerberg's entire speech at the Stripe conference, you will find:
It is not "improving a certain marketing process," but taking over the "last mile" between you and your customers.
It is not helping you improve efficiency, but telling you: "You just need to set the goal, and I will complete the rest."
This means——
Creativity is not the entrance, the goal is;
Traffic is not the asset, path control is;
AI is not a tool, but your new "transaction employee."
In fact, the advertising industry is just a starting point. Its significance lies in: Making businesses realize for the first time that AI doesn't help you work, it does the work for you.
The real competition is not who uses AI faster, but who first turns it into the organization's execution engine and rewrites the transaction path.
The agent system is online, the reshuffle has begun.
📮 This article is produced by AI Depth Research Institute, exclusively compiled based on the Stripe Sessions conference and the dialogue with Mark Zuckerberg.
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