Meta's stock reached an all-time high Friday, reversing the post-pandemic drubbing it took beginning in 2022.

Why it matters: The company's investments in artificial intelligence (AI) have not only helped its ad business recover from a volatile market, but have also convinced Wall Street that the firm is poised for future growth.

• That's become critical amid declining investor interest in mixed reality and the metaverse. Meta is still losing billions of dollars on investments in those products.

Details: On Thursday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg doubled down on his company's investments in AI, saying in an Instagram post that Meta's long-term vision is to build a "massive compute infrastructure" to support new AI products.

• He revealed that company has started training Llama 3, the next generation of its primary generative AI model, and reaffirmed the company's commitment to releasing its AI models via open source when possible, Axios' Ina Fried reported.

Between the lines: While big announcements around generative AI have proven helpful in boosting investor confidence, quieter AI-related investments Meta has made in its ad business have helped the company keep its massive revenue and profit engine from slowing down.

• The company's revenues hit an all-time high in the third quarter of last year, the latest to be publicly reported.
• Investments in AI have also helped Meta counter short-term headwinds from Apple's privacy changes.

The big picture: Meta's gains are especially notable considering how hard it's been for other ad-supported tech firms to regain their momentum since the market began to slow down in 2022.

• Shares in Snap Inc. and Pinterest are still down 80% and 59%, respectively, from their all-time highs in 2021.

Go deeper: For Meta, the big AI play is shoring up its ad business