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Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

You only get one shot at AI supremacy. Or that’s the thinking that seems to have taken hold among Big Tech executives. Their artificial intelligence strategy has a “you only live once” feel: shovel in as much money as possible, hope to come out on top, and if you fail, at least you tried.

Meta Platforms more so than most. Founder Mark Zuckerberg told analysts on Wednesday that he is spending to meet “the most optimistic cases”. That means the Facebook parent investing “notably” more than $100bn next year, twice what analysts were pencilling in for 2026 this time a year ago, according to LSEG.

The resulting $160bn drop in Meta’s market value reflects that, for investors, this logic is doubtful. There is no reason to think investing a lot ensures success — witness Zuckerberg’s languishing Metaverse project — so higher sums just up the chances of big writedowns. Google is spending even more than Meta on data centres but has a cloud computing business, so it can rent what it doesn’t use to third parties.

For one Meta shareholder at least, the risk-reward calculation works a bit differently: Zuckerberg himself. The prize — being the first to achieve so-called superintelligence — isn’t just a financial bet. It would propel him into the history books.

And the downside is limited. There is no chance of Meta going bust. Zuckerberg’s spree has so far been funded with operating cash flows, not debt. While Meta is juicing up its data centre investments with leverage, it is able to do so in joint ventures like the one it has set up with private credit operator Blue Owl that don’t sit on its balance sheet.

Meanwhile, the company makes so much cash that it can afford to risk some of its investments going nowhere. Even if Meta were to spend $500bn on superintelligence in the next five years, it would still have $400bn of cumulative free cash left over, according to Visible Alpha.

Even if Meta were not to cross the finish line first, the capex might not be entirely wasted. Spending on AI is increasingly driving more revenue in its “core” business of selling ads on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. In the latest quarter, it showed users 14 per cent more ads than a year earlier, and charged 10 per cent more for each one.

If the AI race really turns into a damp squib for Meta, the worst it faces is a badly bruised share price. And even that might sting less than one might expect. It is not clear investors were pricing in AI supremacy anyway. Meta shares trade at the same 25 times forward earnings that they have done on average for the past decade.

Failure would be unpleasant. But — for tech bosses who are wealthy, messianic and entrenched — the risk is far outweighed by the potential glory. It will take more than a mini market backlash to kill the AI YOLO trade.

john.foley@ft.com

Jobs at WPP could be at risk as its new chief executive launched a review designed to revive the advertising group’s fortunes after a fresh profit warning.

Cindy Rose announced the review on Thursday, saying she was taking action to address “unacceptable” performance at the company, which has struggled to stem a growing exodus of clients and compete with the AI and data capabilities of its rivals.

The former Microsoft executive said WPP – which lost its top spot as the world’s largest advertising agency by revenue to Publicis last year – would soon become a “much simpler” business that would be “pushing harder” into technology to get growth.

The comments raised the prospect of potential job losses across its 100,000-strong global workforce.

The company warned that its headline operating profit margin would now be lower than expected, sending shares down a further 11% on Thursday morning to 318p. Shares in WPP – which had already warned on annual profits in July – have already lost more than half their value since the start of 2025.

“I acknowledge that our recent performance is unacceptable and we are taking action to address this,” said Rose, who took over the top role in September after six years on WPP’s board.

“To deliver performance improvements, we will position our offering to be much simpler, more integrated, powered by data and AI, efficiently priced and designed to deliver growth and business outcomes for our clients,” Rose said, adding that she would be “dramatically simplifying how we organise ourselves internally, as well as building a high-performance team culture”.

Rose said the company would be “pushing harder” on using tech, and focus on “cost efficiency”. WPP will set out further details of the plans early next year.

WPP now expects “revenue less pass-through costs” – a figure that accounts for fees paid to external suppliers – to fall by between 5.5% and 6% in 2025, marking a downgrade on its previous forecasts for a drop of 3% to 5%. It also estimated that the headline operating profit margin would come in at about 13%, just below the bottom of its previous range.

Rose was appointed as the chief executive in September, in order to implement a sweeping restructure to turn around the ailing London-listed company. She replaced Mark Read, a WPP veteran who worked with the company for 30 years.

“There is a lot to do, and it will take time to see the impact, but in my first 60 days we are already moving at pace with some initiatives already announced and more to come,” Rose said.

“We know what it takes to win: we are optimistic, energised and confident that we’re building the right plan and the right culture to secure a bright future for WPP, our people, our clients, and our shareholders.”