Meta’s 10 Million Muse Users Put Its AI Shopping Bet to the Test
Meta’s 10 Million Muse Users Put Its AI Shopping Bet to the Test
Muse launched in September as Meta’s personal AI agent, designed to handle tasks including web browsing, email and travel booking. Within roughly six weeks, Mark Zuckerberg told investors that more than 10 million people in the U.S. and Canada had set up an agent — a pace he said was more than twice Threads’ early level.
Independent app data broadly reinforced the breakout narrative. Sensor Tower counted 10.9 million downloads since launch, including 10.2 million in the U.S., putting Muse among only 12 apps to reach 10 million U.S. downloads within 40 days. But the firm also pointed to Meta’s advantage: the company directed 39% of its October ad spending toward Muse while promoting it across an ecosystem with billions of daily users.
The early behavior is what makes the milestone consequential for Meta. Zuckerberg said about a quarter of people who set up Muse use it daily, while shopping has become its most common use. More than a quarter of engaged shoppers have made purchases averaging above $200, he said. Meta’s proposed business model follows directly from that activity: keep the service free for most consumers, charge for premium usage, and take a cut when the agent helps complete a transaction.
The longer-term pitch is more radical. Meta is working with partners including Shopify and Walmart on a Personal Agent Protocol, under which a consumer’s agent could interact securely with a merchant’s agent rather than simply navigate a retailer’s website. CFO Susan Li conceded adoption would probably be uneven among businesses concerned about surrendering customer relationships, but argued that safe, useful agents would eventually draw them in.
That confidence is not universally shared. Critics note reports of privacy failures and warn that Meta has offered little detail on how its agent-to-agent marketplace will work in practice. Forrester analyst Kate Winick identified consumer trust as the central unknown: “The more information Muse has, the more effective it can be, and overall trust in Meta remains low.”
Meta also faces an immediate financial constraint. Zuckerberg said Muse is compute-intensive enough that the company has limited it to the U.S. and Canada, pledging to improve cost efficiency by more than 10 times over the next year. Ten million users may validate demand; making billions of agents affordable — and trusted — is the tougher next act.
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