Can Roblox's Expanding AI Infrastructure Power Its Next Growth Cycle?

Roblox Corporation RBLX is advancing into a pivotal stage of its platform evolution with the large-scale rollout of AI-driven technologies designed to deepen engagement and enhance monetization. The company’s third-quarter fiscal 2025 results reflected strong execution on this front — with bookings up 70% year over year to $1.92 billion and daily active users rising 70% to 151.5 million, supported by accelerating user adoption across all key regions.

At the core of this performance lies Roblox’s growing AI infrastructure, which encompasses more than 400 systems deployed across discovery, safety and content creation. Management views this as the structural foundation for the company’s next growth cycle, enabling real-time content generation, automated moderation and highly personalized user experiences.

One of Roblox’s most significant advancements is Cube 4D, an AI engine designed to power real-time, multiplayer content creation. The technology allows developers to generate dynamic environments and gameplay features during live sessions, blurring the line between player interaction and generative design. Complementary initiatives such as RoGuard, which safeguards AI-generated text through advanced language moderation, and AI-based facial age estimation tools further strengthen the company’s platform safety and compliance architecture.

While these investments are expected to drive higher long-term engagement and creator earnings, management has acknowledged the near-term financial implications. Roblox noted that operating margins are likely to face temporary pressure through 2026, reflecting increased spending on GPU infrastructure, edge data centers and developer payouts.

By expanding into new genres such as shooters, sports and racing, and enhancing graphical fidelity through AI-driven creation tools, Roblox aims to evolve from a youth-oriented platform into a full-spectrum digital entertainment ecosystem. Management believes that these technology and infrastructure investments will translate into sustainable growth and stronger monetization over the long term. The company is optimistic and anticipates that these initiatives will support its broader ambition of capturing 10% of the global gaming market.

How It Stacks Up to Competitors

In contrast to Roblox’s heavy infrastructure and AI investment cycle, peers like Unity Software Inc. U and DraftKings Inc. DKNG are taking more measured approaches to AI-driven scalability and data monetization. Unity, for instance, has reached what management calls a “structural inflection point,” balancing product innovation with disciplined cost control. Its proprietary Vector AI platform continues to drive double-digit sequential revenue growth in its advertising segment, with management emphasizing sustainable, broad-based expansion rather than margin trade-offs. Unity’s AI focus remains rooted in ad efficiency and developer enablement, leveraging behavioral data from its runtime system to improve personalization and discovery — a clear parallel to Roblox’s long-term AI-driven content ambitions, albeit from a more enterprise-oriented foundation.

Similarly, DraftKings is exploring AI’s commercial applications within predictive analytics and customer engagement, but remains conservative on upfront capital outlays. Management has positioned AI primarily as an operational efficiency lever to improve risk modeling and customer acquisition while maintaining strong free cash flow generation. DraftKings expects AI to enhance both its cost structure and revenue trajectory beyond 2026, but near-term investment levels are modest compared to Roblox’s expansive GPU and data-center buildout.

RBLX Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Roblox shares have declined 16.8% in the past three months compared with the industry’s fall of 5.8%.

RBLX Three-Month Price Performance

From a valuation standpoint, RBLX trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 8.65, significantly above the industry’s average of 2.75.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for RBLX’s 2025 and 2026 earnings implies a year-over-year decline of 11.8% and 20.5%, respectively. The EPS estimates for 2025 have increased in the past 60 days.

RBLX currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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