Meta is building an AI service that could eventually help entrepreneurs start and run entire businesses, charging them only when it produces results, Mark Zuckerberg told investors during Meta’s second-quarter earnings call Wednesday. More than one million businesses now use Meta’s agents on WhatsApp and Messenger each week, and Meta is rolling them out on Instagram. The agents can already talk to customers and complete sales, with tools being developed to summarize conversations, identify customer wants, provide competitive intelligence, and suggest growth strategies. Future versions could “digest what happened overnight” and surface key information to owners. Meta expects to charge through subscriptions and volume-based fees, with some products potentially resembling its advertising system, where “businesses only pay us when we achieve results for them.” The plan offers a possible payoff from an AI-heavy infrastructure buildout that consumed nearly all of Meta’s quarterly operating cash. Total revenue rose 28 percent from a year earlier to $60.8 billion, while advertising revenue climbed 27 percent to $59.4 billion. Expenses surged 55 percent to $42 billion, and operating income fell 8 percent to $18.8 billion. Meta’s operating margin narrowed to 31 percent from 43 percent.