Meta surges 13%! Muse tops the Apple App Store rankings, analysts say AI investments are starting to pay off

The new AI assistant Muse, launched by Meta, has rapidly climbed to the top spot on the free app charts of both the U.S. Apple App Store and Google Play Store, with early data showing its downloads have surpassed those of its previous-generation product.

Analysts believe this achievement is a concrete sign that Meta's multi-billion dollar investments in AI are starting to pay off, and it could open up brand-new monetization opportunities for the company through advertising, subscriptions, and transaction revenue sharing.

Abe Yousef, senior analyst at market research firm Sensor Tower, pointed out that Muse launched on September 8 and recorded more than 902,000 downloads within the first six days, higher than the 773,000 downloads posted by the previous-generation Meta AI app in the same period.

Compared with earlier products, Muse offers personalized responses based on user social content and allows integration with third-party services such as Gmail, calendar, and OpenTable, marking a significant upgrade in functionalities.

The news boosted Meta's share price, which surged as much as 13% intraday on Monday—the biggest single-day percentage gain since July 2025—with its market value increasing by $200 billion in a day. The rally also lifted Meta's core suppliers, with chipmaker AMD jumping as much as 10%, Intel up to 15%, and Arm Holdings up to 16%.

Muse is positioned as a personalized AI agent capable of executing digital tasks, allowing users to create custom AI tools and autonomously perform online actions.

Its core strength lies in its ability to read users' social content on Facebook Marketplace and Instagram, connect to Gmail, Apple and Google calendars, OpenTable, and other third-party services, and even access other websites via browsers.

By contrast, the earlier Meta AI app released last April mainly focused on image and short video generation, with much less personalization.

Muse offers a free basic version, but users can unlock a larger weekly usage quota by subscribing to plans at $20 or $100 per month. In addition, Muse has already been integrated into Meta's WhatsApp, which means its actual user base may far exceed the independent app's download figures.

Wall Street has given positive reviews to Muse's early performance.

Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney wrote in a Monday research note that "Meta is holding an ace with Muse," calling it "a tangible demonstration of successful product innovation," and noted that the nearly $200 billion Meta has invested in AI is "not in vain."

The Evercore research team pointed out that Muse's user growth trend suggests it could become a "potentially explosive new driver of user engagement" for Meta, and is poised to deliver "significant new monetization opportunities" for the company through advertising, subscriptions, and transaction revenue sharing.

For CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Muse's early success partly validates his strategy of bringing personalized AI assistants to the mass consumer market. The large-scale data center construction and AI research investments supporting this vision also have the potential to gradually translate into commercial returns.