Meta has a genuine hit on its hands โ and for once, it isnโt a social app.
On Wednesdayโs third-quarter earnings call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the companyโs personal AI agent, Muse, has been set up by more than 10 million people in the roughly six weeks since its September 8 launch. The figure, covering the U.S. and Canada where Muse debuted first, confirms estimates that market intelligence firm Sensor Tower published earlier in the week.
For a company that spent the last two years trailing OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google in the AI race, the number lands like a statement.
Six weeks, ten million users
Muse didnโt ease into the market โ it sprinted. Third-party analytics showed the app pulling 2.8 million downloads across iOS and Android in the U.S. and Canada during its first 12 days alone, a faster start than the ChatGPT mobile app managed at launch.
Whatโs caught Zuckerbergโs attention isnโt just the sign-up curve. Itโs that people keep coming back: about 25% of those who set up Muse now use it daily, a retention rate he said runs more than double what Meta saw with Threads.
โProduct-market fit,โ Zuckerberg called it โ Silicon Valley shorthand for the moment a product stops being an experiment and starts being a business.
Shopping became the surprise engine
Hereโs the part nobody quite predicted: Museโs breakout use case isnโt chatting or writing emails. Itโs shopping.
More than a quarter of Museโs engaged users have bought something through the agent, averaging above $200 per purchase โ a number that raised eyebrows even inside the industry. To make it happen, Muse leans on fintech company Plaidโs connector, which links the agent to shoppersโ bank accounts.
โPlaid told us that they hadnโt seen activity like theyโre seeing with their connector on any other service before,โ Zuckerberg said.
The volumes caught everyone off guard. In Museโs first week, Meta had to work with Stripe to raise transaction limits because activity blew past expectations. When it shops, the agent searches for products, fills out forms, and places the order once the user confirms โ paying with single-use card numbers generated through Stripeโs Link service, so neither the agent nor the merchant ever sees the buyerโs real card details.
Itโs not only a shopping bot
Commerce gets the headlines, but Muse is quietly becoming a daily utility. CFO Susan Li told investors that users most often hook the agent up to their email and calendars โ and it can handle chores like booking travel too.
That willingness to hand over inbox access matters. It signals, in Zuckerbergโs telling, that users trust the agentโs security setup: a โMuse Secure VM,โ an isolated virtual machine where the agent stores data and works. A future โMuse Confidential VMโ is meant to go further โ encrypting contents so thoroughly that even Meta itself canโt peek inside.
The money plan
Muse is free for most users today, and Meta intends to keep it that way. Revenue comes from commerce: Meta takes a percentage of transactions flowing through the platform. Power users who want the newest models or bigger token budgets will pay, and thereโs a business tier aimed at workplace productivity.
The ambition runs deeper than a side business. Meta forecasts that Muse will eventually generate more revenue per user than its family of apps โ Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger โ whose users are worth โseveral hundreds of dollarsโ a year each today.
The catch: Muse is brutally expensive to run right now. โOn the compute side, we are building out the capacity to serve more than a billion people over the next few years,โ Zuckerberg told analysts. The plan is to improve cost efficiency โby more than 10x in the next yearโ โ which, with revenue at scale, is what makes the math work.
Whatโs coming next
Meta isnโt treating Muse as a phone app that happens to be popular. Itโs becoming infrastructure.
Next month, Muse gets woven into Metaโs smart glasses โ a move Zuckerberg called central to that hardware lineโs entire business model. A dedicated pocket device, Muse Charm, went from concept to hardware in under a year. Behind the scenes, Meta released a frontier model dubbed Muse Wonder and put former MongoDB CEO CJ Desai in charge of a new Enterprise Platform selling AI inference to businesses.
Then thereโs the โMuse networkโ: taking Muse from a โsingle-player gameโ to one where โyour Muses can work with your friendsโ and your familiesโ [Muses].โ His example: โif you want to buy something, itโs not just navigating to that businessโs website; itโs talking to their agent.โ
The trust question
All of this runs on personal data โ lots of it. An agent that shops for you, reads your email, and manages your calendar needs to know you intimately, and Forrester analyst Kate Winick has flagged the tension: consumer trust in Meta sits at historically low levels.
The rollout hasnโt been flawless. In September, Muse offered a discount it shouldnโt have, disclosed a sellerโs home address, and set up a meeting with a buyer without the ownerโs explicit approval โ the kind of mistakes that are funny until theyโre yours.
And the timing is awkward: earlier that same Wednesday, a New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion over claims it misled users about data handling. Museโs pitch โ trust us with everything โ now has to survive in that shadow.
Whether 10 million users in six weeks becomes 100 million is the open question. What isnโt in doubt: Meta finally has an AI product people actually use, and it plans to build an empire on top of it.
Sources and Resources
- TechCrunch โ Meta says Muse has over 10M users, with shopping a top activity
- TechEchelon โ Meta Posts $64.6 Billion in Q3 Revenue as Muse AI Agent Surpasses 10 Million Users
- SiliconReport โ Meta says Muse AI app drew over 10 million users
- Mezha โ Meta Muse Reaches 10 Million Users as AI Shopping Takes Off
- Seoul Economic Daily โ Meta Lifts Capital Spending Floor, Citing Muse AI Agent Momentum
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Metaโs Muse AI agent free to use?
Yes, for most people. Meta plans to keep Muse free for typical users and earn money by taking a cut of shopping transactions the agent handles. Heavy users who want the newest AI models or higher limits should expect paid tiers eventually.
How does shopping through Muse work โ and does it see my credit card?
You describe what you want; Muse searches for products, fills in checkout forms, and places the order after you confirm. It never sees your real card: payments use single-use numbers from Stripeโs Link service, so neither the agent nor the store gets your actual details. Bank connections run through Plaid.
Which countries can use Muse right now?
The U.S. and Canada, where it launched September 8. No date for other regions yet, but Zuckerberg talks about building capacity for over a billion people โ wider rollout is clearly the plan.
How is Muse different from ChatGPT or other AI assistants?
Agency. Chatbots answer questions; Muse takes actions โ browsing stores, completing purchases, managing calendars, booking travel. Itโs also moving beyond phones: into smart glasses next month and a pocket device called Muse Charm.
Is my personal data safe with Muse?
Meta points to its โMuse Secure VM,โ an isolated virtual machine for the agentโs work, plus a future โMuse Confidential VMโ even Meta canโt access. Skeptics cite Metaโs privacy record โ including a $25 billion New Mexico ruling this week. Connecting email and banking means real trust in those protections.
Conclusion
Ten million users in six weeks doesnโt happen by accident. Muse found something rivals havenโt: a job people hand to an AI daily โ shopping โ with a business model that charges for the transaction, not the chat. Retention suggests itโs sticking. The hard questions remain: can Meta tame compute costs, stop the agentโs expensive mistakes, and keep users trusting it with inbox, calendar, and wallet? Metaโs answer is scale. For now, the momentum is real โ and the industry just got notice.