Meta Platforms has raised its annual capital spending forecast, doubling down on its decision to plough billions into artificial intelligence infrastructure ‌even as it seeks to cut costs with planned layoffs.

The Facebook-parent projects 2026 capital expenditure between $US125 billion and $US145 billion, compared with its prior forecast of $US115 ‌billion to $US135 billion.

Shares of the company fell around five per cent in extended trading.

The company also warned that legal and regulatory blowback in the EU and the US “could significantly impact our business and financial results.”

“We continue to see scrutiny on youth-related issues and have additional trials scheduled for this year in the US, which may ultimately result in a material loss,” the company said.

Meta reported first-quarter revenue of $US56.31 billion, beating the ‌LSEG-compiled analysts’ average ‌estimate of $US55.45 billion.

It expects ⁠second-quarter revenue of $US58 billion to $US61 billion, largely in line with estimates of $US59.5 billion.

Family daily active ​people (DAP), a metric Meta uses to track unique users who open any one of its apps in a day, rose four per cent in the first quarter from a year earlier to 3.56 billion.

The results come weeks after Reuters reported first about Meta’s plans for sweeping layoffs, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg attempts to aggressively integrate AI into the company’s workflows and reshape its workforce around the technology.

Meta, which owns Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, ⁠has been spending heavily on AI infrastructure and high compensation for employees such ‌as those ​working in its Meta Superintelligence Labs, which released its first AI model called Muse Spark earlier this month.

The company’s robust ad platform, which ​offers tools for automating ‌and personalising advertisers’ campaigns, has remained its growth engine and has helped support its investments in AI infrastructure.

Meta launched ads on messaging ​service WhatsApp and microblogging platform Threads last year, intensifying competition with platforms such as Elon Musk’s X. Simultaneously, Instagram’s Reels continue to jostle with TikTok and YouTube Shorts in the lucrative short-video market.

For the first time, Meta is projected to overtake Alphabet ​as the ​world’s biggest online advertiser, with an expected $US243.46 billion in ​global net ad revenue this year, excluding traffic acquisition costs. The forecast, ‌by research firm Emarketer, puts the Google- and YouTube-parent’s annual ad revenue at $US239.54 billion.

Last week, the company expanded the availability of its Meta AI business assistant, designed to help advertisers optimise campaign performance and resolve technical issues through real-time guidance.

Meta is installing new tracking software on US-based employees’ computers to capture mouse movements, clicks and keystrokes to train its AI models, part of a broad initiative to build AI agents that ​can perform work tasks autonomously, Reuters reported last week.

Meanwhile, China ordered Meta to unwind its $US2 billion-plus acquisition of AI startup Manus on ​Monday, as Beijing tightens scrutiny of ⁠US investment in domestic startups developing frontier technologies.

More Australians are taking up desks in coworking spaces, as the flexible venues move beyond Australia’s capital cities and into the suburbs and regional areas.

Flexible Workspace Australia’s 2026 industry report shows the client base of flexible workspaces has moved beyond startups, small businesses, and freelancers to include established corporations.

“Co-working is no longer a phenomenon or fad but an established and expected way of working,” the report released on Thursday said.

Desk rates have trended higher, vacant flexible floorspace has tightened dramatically, and operator sentiment is overwhelmingly positive, according to the report, which is based on a national survey of flexible workplace operators, industry data and expert contributions.

As hybrid work and AI become embedded in businesses, the role of flexible space will only expand.

“We expect to see continued growth across suburban and regional markets, increased adoption by enterprise organisations, and further innovation in how spaces are designed and adopted,” the report said.

Ophelie Cutier, the report’s main author and the chief executive of Perth and Sydney based startup hub Spacecubed, has been in the flexible workspace industry for 14 years.

“In Australia, the industry was definitely in its infancy when I started, and there had been huge growth before COVID,” Ms Cutier told AAP.

But many smaller operators didn’t survive the pandemic lockdowns, with half of all spaces in Sydney and Melbourne shutting down.

The report found the industry has rebounded and is growing once again, although slower than it did before the pandemic.

“One of the trends we’ve seen in the last three years is that the allocation from landlord to flex space has doubled in the last three years,” Ms Cutier said.

“So that’s a very big uptick.”

The report also found that pricing had normalised above pre-pandemic levels and remains resilient.

The median desk rate for a co-working space ranges from around $500 per person in central Hobart to $1000 per person per desk in Sydney’s CBD, although spaces outside CBDs are considerably cheaper.

“What I am noticing a lot is a real desire for suburban and flexible co-working operators, and I love that because it’s a field we play in,” said Jessie Glew, co-chair of Flexible Workspace Australia.

Ms Glew is also chief executive of Wotso, which has 42 coworking hubs across Australia and New Zealand.

“We are seeing a growing number of landlords wanting to put coworking into their assets, in particular in the suburbs and regions, because they’re looking for this service,” she said.

“It’s become like the gym or the childcare centre or the coffee shop, it’s needed as part of an asset’s genetic makeup, because it helps bring people to the asset.”

Wotso is looking to expand into Bundaberg and Harvey Bay in Queensland and out in NSW as far as Orange, Ms Glew said.

“We feel like we have a really big impact in those areas, because there’s often not a purpose-built space for small to medium businesses.”

Given higher fuel costs, larger businesses are also looking at dispersing their workforce, and offering employees a central CBD office as well as closer-to-home solutions a couple of days a week.

The typical user of a coworking space varies quite a bit by location with some of Wotso’s hubs attracting plumbers and builders and others popular with tech workers.

A two to four person office tends to be the most popular offering.

Hub Australia, a major coworking player that’s more active in central business districts, boasts well-known corporate clients including Fujitsu, Monday.com, Xero, Village Roadshow Pictures and Vanguard.

While flexible workspaces make up only a tiny fraction of the 5.3 million square metres of office space in Sydney’s CBD, they’re starting to dominate.

Slightly more than half, or 53 per cent, of all five to 10 person offices in Sydney are flexible workspaces, as are more than three-quarters of all one to four person offices, the report said.

The report also found most coworking spaces were used by local small businesses, as well as freelancers, remote workers and startups.

Corporations made up about a third of tenants.

Brett McAllen, the chief executive of @WORKSPACES, which offers serviced offices in Melbourne, Brisbane and the Gold Coast, said that demand had accelerated significantly from businesses of all sizes.

“We are seeing a fundamental shift in how businesses think about office space,” he said.

“Long-term leases are being viewed as a liability.

“Businesses want premium environments, but they want flexibility, control and the ability to scale up or down without being locked in.”

Workforces are more dynamic, teams are more distributed and business conditions are less predictable, so companies want the ability to respond quickly to changing business conditions.

“This is about agility,” Mr McAllen.

“If your workspace cannot adapt, it becomes a constraint rather than an asset.”

Australian power grids have proven far more resilient to the latest global energy crisis compared with the Russia-Ukraine war, bolstered by battery boom and subdued local gas prices.

A ballooning battery fleet soaking up cheap, abundant solar to discharge in the evening peak have cut reliance on dearer gas and hydro generation, the market operator says.

More battery usage fed into lower year-on-year wholesale electricity prices in most regions. 

Batteries set prices nearly a third of the time in the first three months of 2026, surpassing all other technologies.

“Grid-scale batteries are increasingly absorbing excess renewable energy during the day and shifting it into the market during evening peaks, helping moderate prices during high-demand periods,” the Australian Energy Market Operator’s Violette Mouchaileh said.

The eastern grid has doubled its installed battery capacity in 12 months, as grid-scale projects and subsidised household systems entered the market at pace.

Wholesale spot prices across the main eastern network averaged $73/megawatt hour (MWh) in the first three months of 2026, down 12 per cent from the same period in 2025, but higher than the spring quarter before.

Summer quarters typically see higher prices as hot days push demand and prices higher. 

Early 2026 prices were also well below the above $250/MWh averages of 2022 triggered by the Russia-Ukraine war, despite similar international price shocks following recent Middle East conflicts.

Gas prices, which typically drive east coast power bills when peaking plants cover evening demand spike, were also surprisingly subdued given the geopolitical context.

Wholesale gas prices averaged $10.61/GJ, lower than in the first three months of 2026.

Ms Mouchaileh said lower gas demand for electricity generation and a moderately lower Queensland LNG exports weighed on domestic prices, even as international prices surged.

Wood Mackenzie research analyst Natalie Thompson said Australia’s power system was undergoing a structural shift insulating it from global energy price shocks. 

“Growth in renewables and batteries, reduced reliance on gas-fired generation, and the rise of distributed energy resources are materially lowering exposure to international fossil fuel markets,” she said.

“Australia’s energy transition is now delivering tangible energy security benefits alongside emissions reductions.”

Solar and wind continue to supply a growing share of Australia’s total generation, AEMO’s quarterly electricity snapshot revealed, with the 46.5 per cent a record high for a first quarter.

Renewables share was lower than the 51 per cent of overall supply in the quarter prior, reflecting a jump in demand as airconditioners fired up during searing January temperatures, reaching 50C in some heatwave locations. 

Ongoing electrification and data centre connections also added to a new quarterly record for electricity demand, with 11 big projects working through the connection process.

The Federal Reserve has held interest rates ‌stead but in its most divided decision since 1992 noted rising concerns about inflation in a policy statement that drew three dissents from officials ‌who no longer feel the US central bank should communicate a bias towards lowering borrowing costs.

A fourth dissent at the meeting came in favour of a quarter-percentage-point rate cut.

“Inflation ‌is elevated, in part reflecting the recent increase in global energy prices,” the Fed said in its policy statement, a shift from previous language saying that inflation was just “somewhat” elevated.

Developments in the Middle East are contributing to a high level of uncertainty about the economic outlook.

The 8-4 vote was the most divisive since October 6, 1992, and shows the breadth of opinion incoming Fed chair Kevin Warsh will face in pursuing rate cuts that US President Donald Trump says he expects from his chosen ‌successor to Jerome ‌Powell, whose term as central ⁠bank chief ends on May 15.

Although the latest policy statement retained language about how the Fed would ​assess the “extent and timing of additional adjustments” to rates, a phrase that pointed to future cuts as the next likely move, three policy makers objected.

Cleveland Fed president Beth Hammack, Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari and Dallas Fed president Lorie Logan, while supportive of holding the policy rate steady in the current 3.50 per cent-3.75 per cent range, “did not support inclusion of an easing bias in the statement at this time” and voted against the new statement.

With global oil prices lodged above $US100 a barrel due to the US-backed war against Iran, ⁠the Fed has been hard-pressed to determine if the effects are likely to be ‌seen more through depressed ​growth or higher inflation, keeping the policy rate in the range where it has been since December despite repeated urgings by Trump for looser monetary policy.

Alongside ​elevated inflation, “the unemployment ‌rate has been little changed in recent months” while the economy continues to expand “at a solid pace,” the Fed said.

The new statement is ​likely the last to be issued under Powell’s leadership.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Republican-controlled Senate Banking Committee voted to advance Warsh’s nomination on a party-line 13-11 vote. 

The Senate is expected to confirm Warsh next month.

Powell is scheduled to hold a press conference later on Wednesday to elaborate ​on ​the results of the meeting and the economic outlook, and may ​also address whether he plans to remain at the Fed as a governor ‌in a separate term that runs through January of 2028.

The Chinese government has agreed to co-operate with ‌Australian businesses on jet fuel shipments, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong says, suggesting China could ‌loosen curbs on exports imposed amid supply disruption from the Iran war.

“We believe this is an ‌important step, but it is the first step,” Wong told reporters in Beijing, adding that the aim of her trip was to press for Chinese co-operation “in particular for the provision of liquid fuels”.

Wong is in China as part of a three-country tour that also includes Japan and South ‌Korea, with ‌Australia seeking to ⁠keep ties with China on a steadier footing while co-ordinating ​with regional powers on energy security.

Australia, which imports most of its fuel, has faced localised shortages since the Middle East conflict that began in February.

China has clamped down on fuel exports since March to protect domestic supply after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz disrupted crude and fuel flows.

China is ⁠a major source of fuel in Asia ‌and ​supplied a third of Australia’s jet fuel last year.

In a meeting with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, Wong ​said she “made ‌the point that the imports China supplies to Australia, including jet fuel, support the Australian ​resources sector, which in turn helps to maintain the flow of commodities” that are crucial to the bilateral trading ties.

“Our energy security is shared,” Wong said.

“Energy supplies to us ​impact ​upon our capacity to provide other ​energy and other commodities to the region,” she ‌added.

China has approved 500,000 metric tons of fuel exports for May to regions other than Hong Kong, representing a near doubling of shipments forecast for April, trading sources said, but levels remain less than half of last year’s corresponding averages.

“It is more important than ever for countries of ​the region to work together to co-ordinate our responses and to keep fuel and goods ​flowing,” the Australian foreign ⁠minister said on Wednesday.

Every day, Australians are buying gas stoves and heaters with no clue their bills are projected to balloon as other customers abandon the network in droves.

Consumers should be warned they are locking themselves into decades of covering gas network costs as electrification accelerates, Energy Consumers Australia proposes.

“We know how many hens per hectare there are when we buy our carton of eggs,” the consumer group’s general manager advocacy and policy Brian Spak told AAP.

“But there’s not simple consumer information on the package when you buy a gas appliance.”

The threat of unsustainable price hikes underpins the consumer advocacy group’s calls for an “equitable and orderly” gas phase-out.

A national electrification blueprint targeting no gas in new homes by 2028 and all-electric housing by 2050 should be accompanied with consumer appliance labels and mandatory electric replacements for busted gas appliances in rentals.

Lowering upgrade costs was also recommended, as well as managing the transition of the $11 billion gas network that fairly shares the costs between consumers, networks, investors and taxpayers. 

Household gas bills are expected to soar as climate goals and improving economics bolster the case for home and business electrification, leaving behind a shrinking pool of customers to cover costs of gas pipes and infrastructure.

By 2045, a near 80 per cent decline in household and commercial gas use is forecast by the Australian Energy Market Operator. 

Modelling suggests South Australians could be slugged with a near 65 per cent total gas bill increase within the decade if they do not electrify. 

By mid-century, households in the state could be paying 265 per cent more for gas.

Renters, low-income households and apartment-dwellers are most likely to get stuck on gas.

Regulators have been responding, with new gas buyers soon to pay upfront for connections to stop costs being socialised across the entire customer base.

Nationally aligned government policy is needed as well, Mr Spak said.

“We need government to just, first of all, acknowledge that this is the direction” the energy market is travelling in he said.

Government quietly recognises the projected demise of gas but “saying it out loud” would send a message to choose electric as gas appliances reach end-of-life, he said.

“The longer we wait, the harder this is going to get,” he said.

“You’re going to have people who buy gas appliances now or in five years, and then are stuck with this gas appliance they don’t want.”

State and territory governments are primarily responsible for gas networks and the Australian Capital Territory and Victoria have been spearheading pathways towards electrification.

Other gas-reliant states, including South Australia, NSW and Western Australia, have been falling behind.  

While banning new gas appliances is flagged as the most effective pathway to electrification, the report recognises limited political appetites for restricting consumer choice.

Reining in the National Disability Insurance Scheme and property investor tax breaks could save the budget $30 billion over four years, the chief economist at Australia’s biggest bank says.

Luke Yeaman, who was a senior department official under Treasurer Jim Chalmers before switching to the Commonwealth Bank, said the upcoming budget was shaping as one of the most interesting in a long time.

Since Labor’s huge election win in May 2025, it has been framed as a reforming budget to fix Australia’s chronic productivity malaise and structural fiscal deficit.

The Iran war has made the task for Mr Yeaman’s former boss even tougher, as Dr Chalmers attempts to pull off major reform, big spending cuts, national resilience and supporting households in one budget.

The conflict has deepened the government’s inflation predicament.

The headline consumer price index soared to 4.6 per cent in the year to March, the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported on Wednesday, as the oil shock caused fuel prices to rise 33 per cent.

“We expect the government to try to thread the needle. To pull this off, they will need to meet several tests,” Mr Yeaman said.

Firstly, spending cuts to the tune of tens of billions of dollars are needed to reduce the deficit and help cool inflation. 

Already, the government has announced major changes to the NDIS, which it claims will save $35 billion over four years.

“This is a welcome and badly needed reform,” Mr Yeaman said.

“The big question is whether such sharp cuts in spending can be delivered, especially so quickly.”

Demands from the states for more funding to shoulder taking on replacement services would test the government’s resolve, he said, predicting that cumulative savings would be closer to $20‑25 billion over the next four years.

Telegraphed changes to negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount will also boost revenue, even though Mr Yeaman expects the impact on house prices to be relatively modest.

Together, with the NDIS savings, they could improve the budget bottom line by around $30 billion over four years and $200 billion over 10 years, Mr Yeaman estimated.

The second test of the budget would be changes that do shift the dial on housing affordability and productivity, Mr Yeaman said.

That could look like broader business or personal tax reform, although implementing an allowance for corporate equity or a tax on gas windfall profits has been made more unlikely by the Iran war.

The third test is on national resilience and the cost of living, including lifting Australia’s fuel reserves to 90 days, in line with international standards.

“We assume that government will commit $20 billion in the budget over five years to boost energy resilience,” Mr Yeaman said.

“This could include a combination of increasing the domestic reserves and boosting refining capacity.”

Further support for households was also likely, but Mr Yeaman expected the government to avoid making a big splash that would risk adding further fuel to the inflation fire and heap pressure on the Reserve Bank.

Following Wednesday’s inflation release, bond traders slightly lowered their rate expectations but still predicted two more hikes, including one at the RBA’s next meeting on Tuesday.

Citi chief economist Josh Williamson expects the central bank to follow it up with another hike in June.

Australia’s inflation headache was “about to become a migraine” with price pressures expected to persist over the coming quarters, he said.

The Iran war could result in Australia building 33,000 fewer homes than planned, the government’s independent housing adviser has warned.

Australia was making ground on its housing supply targets before the Middle East conflict broke out in late February, the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council found in its annual state of the housing system report on Thursday.

But the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which send fuel prices sky-rocketing and disrupted supply chains for building materials such as PVC pipe, has severely impacted the housing sector.

“There is, particularly for smaller firms, an enormous amount of pressure on costs,” council chair Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz told AAP.

Prior to the conflict, the council was estimating that Australia would build 980,000 new homes over the National Housing Accord period, which ends in June 2029. 

The accord set an “ambitious” target of 1.2 million new homes over five years, which the sector had been lagging behind, but recent building approvals and commencements data showed progress was being made.

But the council now expects 33,000 fewer homes will be built over the accord period than previously assumed if the crisis persists and the increase in construction costs peaks at 10 per cent.

The impact could be even worse, Ms Lloyd-Hurwitz warned, as the council’s modelling does not take into account consumer sentiment, reticence to borrow, and broader economic conditions.

Even as the supply outlook was looking brighter before the war, affordability continued to deteriorate, the report found.

The share of a median household’s income needed to rent rose to a record-high 33.1 per cent in 2025.

The number of years needed to save for a 20 per cent deposit rose to 11.2 years.

Rental unaffordability has been driven by a chronic shortfall in supply, which has pushed vacancy rates far below long-run averages.

Nationally, just two per cent of the rental stock was available in 2025, according to the Real Estate Institute of Australia.

Single mum Rachael Jackson has felt just how unaffordable the private rental market is first hand.

After fleeing domestic violence, she and her three children have been in and out of homelessness.

Ms Jackson has struggled to afford a place to rent in Sydney’s Northern Beaches as no social housing options offered to her was suitable for her family.

“We’re exhausted, we just want stable accommodation,” she said.

“The way the system is built is, if you go out and get work or get a pay rise, you lose your subsidy, so you’re homeless anyway. 

“So it’s not built to help people in poverty get out of poverty; it’s built to keep you trapped.”

Community service group Anglicare Australia found that out of the 48,776 rental listings across the country on the weekend of March 14-15, just one was affordable and suitable for a single person on JobSeeker.

A rental property is deemed affordable if it takes up no more than 30 per cent of a household’s budget.

Anglicare’s rental affordability snapshot shows there are no options for low-income Australians in the private rental market, which has been built to benefit investors, said executive director Kasy Chambers.

She called for the government to rein in tax breaks for property investors and use the money to build more public housing, agreeing with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that changes to negative gearing and the capital gains discount are needed to stem anger about intergenerational unfairness.

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Pacific women and girls bearing the brunt of the climate crisis are demanding governments listen to their lived experiences when making global commitments at a major upcoming conference.

Ahead of COP31, a key summit on climate change to be held in November, leaders are being urged to measure their commitments against humanity rather than economics.

Floods devastating crops, disappearing resources for cultural weaving and economic hardship fuelling gender-based violence, human-driven global warming is particularly taking a toll on women in the Pacific region.

A session on climate change at the Women Deliver conference explored how leaders can better respond to the realities facing women and communities living on the front lines of climate change.

Pacific feminists issued 17 urgent demands for systemic change to protect the future of Pacific people, land and oceans.

The climate crisis and the gender equality crisis were not separate emergencies, but one and the same, Tuvalu Prime Minister Feleti Penitala Teo said at the session on Wednesday.

“They are the same crisis produced by the same system, a system organised around one logic: colonialism said that this land is not yours, the extractive economy said that these costs are not mine and the patriarchy said that women’s work is not work,” he said.

“The defining injustice of our time is that the people who bear the cost of those decisions were never invited to be part of those decisions.”

The annual climate talks will be held in Turkey but with Australia in a “president of negotiations” role. A pre-COP meeting will be held in the Pacific islands.

Mr Teo admitted there was little optimism to be drawn from the COP process, but it was the only means states had to engage in global climate discussions.

But he said the pre-COP meeting would allow leaders to see firsthand the extent of Pacific nations vulnerability to climate change and sea-level rise.

“What happens between this week and COP31 will certainly determine the fate of women and children,” he said.

“Will they inherit a country or will they inherit just a memory of a country that used to be?”

Human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson was among the team that secured the landmark advisory opinion on climate from the International Court of Justice in 2025.

The advisory determined states have a duty to prevent significant harm to the climate system and ruled that wealthy nations that cause climate change have legal obligations to help nations suffering the impacts.

“It means if Australia continues to approve fossil fuel mines, then there is potentially legal action that could be brought by Vanuatu or other climate-vulnerable nations,” Ms Robinson said.

What was needed now was for frontline communities to bring claims, but Ms Robinson acknowledged they would need funding to back court action.

“If we’re going give this remarkable, historic ICJ decision life, we need to start litigating in our domestic and regional courts and international bodies, but we need to support the communities to be able to bring those cases,” she said.