Meta has made a significant executive hire to accelerate its enterprise AI strategy, with Chirantan 'CJ' Desai, CEO and President of MongoDB, stepping down to join Meta Platforms as Chief Enterprise Platform Officer. As reported by The Times of India, the appointment puts an executive whose career has largely been in business software in charge of turning Meta's AI technology into products companies can use. Desai will report directly to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and lead the company's new Meta Enterprise Platform for businesses, focusing on bringing Meta's full technology stack to companies and developers. MongoDB has appointed Dev Ittycheria as interim CEO as it searches for a permanent replacement. Desai previously served as president of product and engineering at Cloudflare and spent nearly eight years at ServiceNow, including as President and COO. His move comes amid Meta's big bets on artificial intelligence and investor expectations of high returns on billions spent on AI infrastructure.
Meta shares have surged 30% in September following the release of its Muse personal AI assistant, which has quickly risen to the top of app charts and validated investor confidence in the company's AI strategy. According to reports from The Globe and Mail, the stock is on pace for its best month since July 2013 and has risen from $572.34 at the end of August to about $750. The rally represents a dramatic reversal for Meta, which had struggled for much of the year amid doubts about its costly AI efforts and legal risks from social media lawsuits. Muse became the top free app on Apple's U.S. App Store and had over 2.8 million downloads in its first two weeks, according to analytics firm Sensor Tower. Shares surged over 11% on Monday, Sept. 21, amid the buzz surrounding the AI assistant. Muse has rapidly climbed in Apple's App Store and Google Play rankings in recent weeks and has been described by analysts as potentially the biggest app launch in the US since ChatGPT in November 2022 that helped kick off the AI boom.
Meta announced on Monday that it would bring its AI models, agents and tools to businesses under its new Meta Enterprise Platform, including the newly launched Muse, Meta Business Agent and coding tools. As reported by The Times of India, the new platform will initially bring together tools including its Muse AI agent, Meta Business Agent, Muse API and Muse Code. Meta has not announced pricing or a timetable for the broader platform. The company launched Muse earlier this month, a personal AI agent designed to carry out tasks such as shopping, booking travel, sending emails and making payments on behalf of users. Desai will directly report to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in the newly created role of chief enterprise platform officer and will focus on turning the company's AI stack into products and services that companies can deploy for their own businesses. The platform represents Meta's strategic pivot to monetize its AI investments through enterprise solutions, targeting corporate customers who are increasingly adopting AI tools for business operations.
Goldman Sachs warned that AI companies such as Meta would need to generate about $300 billion in annual AI services revenue simply to break even on their capital spending. To generate meaningful profits, they would need around $1 trillion in annual AI services revenue. The warning raised concerns about the AI spending plans of Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Oracle, with investors now assessing whether Meta's massive AI investments can eventually produce sufficient returns. Despite the strong September performance, the concerns come as Meta's expected capital expenditure for 2026 could reach as much as $145 billion, with the figure becoming a key focus for investors.
According to The Globe and Mail, Meta's September surge follows a pattern where the company has risen 20% or more in nine earlier months, and shares were up 12 months later every time. The median one-year gain after such months was around 68%, with gains ranging from 21% to 177% depending on the specific month. However, this month's rally differs from previous patterns as it came between earnings reports and relies primarily on app downloads rather than hard financial evidence. The stock is now within 5% of its record close of $790.00 hit in August 2025, with most of the September gains occurring since Sept. 8 when Meta released Muse. Meta had also come within less than 1% of a $2 trillion market valuation on Thursday before the subsequent share decline.
