Meta's Muse tops iOS app charts as stock rises about 20% since launch

Meta's Muse personal AI assistant has been topping app store charts and is currently the top free app on Apple's iOS store, CNBC reported on 7 October. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has described Muse as the "centerpiece" of the company's artificial intelligence strategy. CNBC reported that the bigger challenge is getting people to keep using Muse after the initial appeal fades.

Meta's stock is up about 20% since the app's launch a month ago and recorded its best month in September since 2022, according to CNBC. MarketWatch reported on 7 October that the stock achieved a golden cross, a chart pattern in which a stock's short-term average price crosses above its long-term average price.

Meta is pitching Muse to consumers and small businesses for tasks such as organizing personal emails, searching for shopping deals and finding prospective customers, CNBC reported. AI agents are software tools that complete tasks for users. The app is free, and Meta sells monthly subscription plans for $20 or $100 depending on tokens, a metric the company uses to calculate the power AI agents need to complete tasks.

Meredith Whalen, chief research officer at IDC, said in an email that Muse has an opportunity to be "sticky" with consumers because it is a task-completer rather than just a chatbot. She said it is unclear whether consumers will hand over the personal data needed to create an efficient digital assistant. "Price comes later, once the habit is established," she said.

CNBC reported that the data question is a particularly big obstacle for Meta, which agreed to an almost $17 billion settlement with a group of states. The states alleged the company misrepresented the extent of child mental health harms caused by apps like Facebook and Instagram.

Ketan Karkhanis, CEO of ThoughtSpot, which sells AI agent technologies to businesses, said enterprise-scale AI agent adoption is "still page one, chapter one." He said he has not seen the "killer use cases" that would make apps like Muse more compelling than a "next-gen Alexa" or Siri voice assistant. Andrew Geller, executive producer of media firm 1stAveMachine, said his company builds its own internal AI agent tools for certain production tasks. He called consumer-focused AI agents like Muse "quite helpful" for introducing the technology to the masses but "hardly life-changing."