Investors price Meta Muse growth as rivals prepare apps

Meta Muse has reached No. 1 on Apple’s U.S. App Store, giving Meta an early consumer AI lead. The app faces privacy and access tests.

Meta launched Muse on September 8 as a personal AI agent designed to act across a user’s digital accounts. Meta shares rose 11% Monday after the app had held the top U.S. App Store position since Friday.

Muse reaches No. 1

The early download numbers give Meta a visible consumer product in a field where investors have pressed for clearer returns from its multibillion-dollar AI spending. Muse has been downloaded more than 2.5 million times since launch, according to SensorTower, a market intelligence firm.

The product’s value depends on permission: it becomes more capable if users give it access to emails, text messages, calendars and other accounts. The unresolved question is how many people will hand those credentials to Meta, rather than try the app with limited access.

Password trust becomes the gate

An Oppenheimer & Co. survey of U.S. consumers found that 8% would trust Meta with their passwords, compared with 30% who said they would trust Google. That gap matters because an agent with thin access can look more like a chatbot than a digital assistant.

Meta said in its launch materials that Muse was built with security in mind and that each agent operates on its own secure, dedicated computer. Alexandr Wang, Meta’s AI chief, said before launch that the company was more focused on accidental leaks of personal information or deleted emails than on the AI acting outside user intent.

Analysts remain cautious about the risk of a breach involving credentials or payment data. “If tomorrow we come in and there’s some kind of major hack of some of these agents having taken someone’s credentials or somebody’s credit card information and went berserk, then I think it’ll be negative for the entire space,” said Youssef Squali, an analyst at Truist Securities.

Amazon blocks the shopping path

Muse also depends on whether major websites allow automated agents to act on behalf of users. Amazon blocked Muse from accessing its site and buying items for customers on Sunday night, saying it had not been told in advance and had not authorized the activity.

“We think it’s fairly straightforward that third-party applications that offer to make purchases on behalf of customers from other businesses should operate openly and respect service provider decisions about whether or not to participate,” an Amazon spokesperson said. Meta declined to comment on Amazon’s move.

The dispute points to a commercial chokepoint for AI agents: shopping sites are not only stores but advertising platforms. Josh Beck, a technology analyst at Raymond James, said online marketplaces will need to believe agents bring enough added users and sales to avoid becoming “net negative.”

Meta said it has partnerships with brands including Shopify, Instacart and Dick’s Sporting Goods. Those relationships could give Muse usable paths into commerce even if some large platforms restrict access.

Google and OpenAI loom

Competition is the other limit on Meta’s opening advantage. Squali said Muse could add $28.5 billion in incremental revenue for Meta by 2030, but he also warned that rivals may copy the product quickly.

“I don’t know whether it’s sustainable because if we learn anything from this space, give Google and OpenAI a couple weeks and they’ll duplicate whatever is out there,” Squali said. “At least, as of now, I think the narrative around Meta has been changing.”

The market reaction has extended beyond Meta. Shares in wealth-management firms, brokerage houses and large banks sold off Tuesday, including a drop of more than 6% for Charles Schwab, while Booking Holdings and Allstate were also hit.

If Meta keeps user growth and wins broader site access, agent-mediated commerce could shift more advertising and transaction activity toward platforms that control user intent. Under that path, Meta could gain a new revenue stream, while retailers and marketplaces would have to decide how much control to give external agents.

If privacy resistance, security incidents or website blocks spread, adoption would likely move more slowly and the macro effect on digital commerce would be more limited. For Meta, that would raise the cost of trust-building; for the wider AI sector, it would favor closed partnerships over open web access.

If Google, OpenAI or other rivals match Muse quickly, consumer AI may become less concentrated around one app. Meta would still benefit from early attention, but the industry’s economics would depend more on distribution, default settings and which companies control the accounts agents need to use.