Mark Zuckerberg's Meta has come under fire for spending gazillions on AI. Now, it's trying to use its AI products to make money.

• The latest example: an update to its Muse Spark large language AI model, which Meta will charge developers for access — with an aggressive plan to compete with rivals like OpenAI and Anthropic.

Catch up quick: Meta is on track to spend over $200 billion over the past two years on its AI buildout, pouring money into data centers, chips and infrastructure.

• It has another $600 billion committed through 2028.
• Until recently, however, the return on that investment has come indirectly, from things like more efficient targeted advertising.

State of play: That has changed in recent months.

• In May, it began testing consumer subscriptions for its chatbot, and last month it began selling businesses access to an AI agent.
• Early in July, Meta's shares jumped on a report that it was wading into the business of selling cloud computing services.
• Today's plan for Muse Spark 1.1 represents the first time Meta has made its models publicly available to developers through API, and the first time it will charge to use them.

Between the lines: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg described its pricing plan to Bloomberg as "very aggressive and attractive," with the company's goal to drive widespread adoption.

• He characterized pricing from other competing labs as "very extreme," supporting "very high margins."

The impact: Meta shares closed up 4.7%. They're down over 4% for the year, compared to an 18% gain for the Nasdaq-100.

Reality check: Muse Spark 1.1 is not the big leap that Meta hopes to make with its next big release, Axios' Ina Fried writes. That model, code-named Watermelon, is still in training and uses vastly more compute. It should be released later this year.

The bottom line: Meta is trying to close the gap between it and AI leaders, including OpenAI and Anthropic.

Go deeper

PepsiCo has a North America problem in its snacks business — and it's blaming a lot of it on the price of gas, Axios' Pete Gannon writes.

Catch up quick: The maker of Cheetos, Doritos and Lay's has been cutting prices this year to try to reignite sales.

• It hasn't worked quite yet, however, as volume growth came in flat in the second quarter.

🗣️ What they're saying: "Will it change in the coming months? It all depends on the price of gas," PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta told analysts on the company's earnings call today.

• Consumers are increasingly laying off "impulse" purchases, Laguarta said, particularly at convenience stores where they've seen a correlation with what would-be buyers are paying at the pump.
• "I think the consumer is worse than what we had anticipated and driven mainly by gas prices," he said.

🌍 Zoom out: Pepsi's net sales actually rose 6.4%, but growth was driven by its international segment.

📉 The impact: The company's shares sank over 5% this morning before closing down 3.3%.

🏦 Goldman Sachs is reportedly banning employees from trading on prediction markets except for sports and entertainment bets. (Bloomberg)

🏛️ The Fed announced leaders of five outside task forces that chairman Kevin Warsh has formed in his push to reform the central bank — a list that includes Marc Andreessen and former Walmart CEO Doug McMillon. (Axios)

🤖 Anthropic appointed former Fed chair Ben Bernanke to its Long-Term Benefit Trust, an independent governance structure that advises the company and appoints its board members. (CNBC)

White jeans are flying off the shelves, Pete writes.

Driving the news: Levi Strauss & Co. today reported that sales of women's white denim grew 70% in the second quarter — an example of "exceptional strength in seasonal trends."

What they're saying: "White jeans have moved from a seasonal option to the denim style cool celebrities are already embracing for summer," fashion and lifestyle magazine Grazia recently wrote, calling them "the biggest denim trend of 2026."

• Celebrities from Martha Stewart to Kendall Jenner have been rocking the look, the magazine noted.
• Us Weekly this week called white jeans "the chicest denim trend of the summer."

The bottom line: Levi Strauss appears to have caught a nice piece of the action.