Is AI the biggest threat to social platforms?

Social media is becoming less social. You may have noticed this in your own life, as the endless scroll of short-form video becomes default. Users are more likely to turn to ‘social’ platforms for entertainment than to communicate with friends, according to MIDiA’s quarterly consumer survey. 

At MIDiA, we have discussed how this will likely push younger audiences towards multiplayer gaming worlds; how this may boost smaller, community-centric and physical networks; and how AI is competing directly. 

However, this still leaves an important question unanswered: what are the social media platforms doing in response? 

Social beyond social 

A shift to content-first, entertainment-centric experiences has been valuable for TikTok and Instagram (YouTube has largely been this way since inception). Even Facebook has leaned in more heavily to this approach, as has Snapchat with Spotlight. Passive consumption means more time spent, and therefore, more ads seen. As consumers are accustomed to accessing social media for free, revenue growth needs to come from ads, as well as from new revenue streams entirely. Enter AI. 

AI poses a growing competitive challenge to social media: roughly 1 in 10 generative AI users engage with it for companionship or conversation, and roughly 1 in 5 use it to explore personal topics, according to MIDiA’s quarterly survey data. AI offers endless opportunities for content creation without the need to go outside and take photos or videos of anything, and that content can be shared across any number of platforms. In short, it is competing with human connection, and by extension, with social platforms themselves. 

Social platforms are not trying to resist this shift, but are positioning themselves to be at the forefront of the change. 

The race is on (and it has a space theme)

Snapchat now offers an AI conversation bot in-app. Grok can be addressed directly in comments sections. Yet the biggest shifts are behind the scenes. Elon Musk’s SpaceX acquired his AI startup, xAI, in February 2026, which acquired X in March 2025. SpaceXAI has recently made a deal allowing Anthropic use of all compute capacity at SpaceXAI’s Colossus 1 data centre, according to press releases by both companies. Building on the compute product, the companies have also begun exploring the building of orbital data centres, as reported by CBC. 

Meta, too, has engaged with the space race, announcing a partnership in April 2026 with Overview Energy to collect solar power in space (per Social Media Today). Its capital expenditure on investment in AI infrastructure is projected to be between $125 and $145 billion, per Fortune – double that of last year. It is also a strong bet, considering that it has lost an estimated $83.5 billion on its Reality Labs division since 2021 (as reported by TechCrunch) and is considering winding down the programme. 

In short: AI compute power may be emerging as more valuable than ad revenue, which has prompted social platform parent companies Google, Meta, and SpaceXAI to commit substantial company resources to building it out. As the saying goes, if you can’t beat them, join them.

This will ultimately mean two things for consumers. Their digital “social” experiences will increasingly prioritise AI. Mainstream apps will flood with more content as a demonstrated use-case for why users should engage further with the creator tools. On the flip side, consumers’ needs for community will find homes elsewhere. Niche spaces like Discord, authentic creator hubs like Patreon, and even real-world live networks will have a renewed focus, as they offer value that increasingly will no longer be available on the mainstream social platforms themselves.