TLDR
Meta's personal AI agent Muse recorded 1.8 million iOS downloads in the US and Canada in its first 12 days, outpacing ChatGPT's equivalent figure by 38 per cent. Daily active users reached 642,000, nearly three times ChatGPT's count at the same stage, with Meta's existing social network giving it a structural distribution advantage.
The numbers that matter to OpenAI
Muse recorded 1.8 million iOS downloads in the US and Canada in its first 12 days, against 1.3 million for ChatGPT over the equivalent period after launch, according to market-intelligence firm Apptopia.[1] Twelve days is the same window ChatGPT needed to set that bar. The gap is 38 per cent, measured on a single platform in two markets.
Engagement separates from raw installs quickly. Muse reached 642,000 US daily active users on iOS at the 12-day mark, compared with 231,000 for ChatGPT at the same stage.[1] Apptopia also put Muse's worldwide total at 2.8 million installs across the same window.[1]
Why the numbers are structural
More than 95 per cent of early Muse users were already Facebook users, and 63 per cent used Instagram.[2] Meta inherited those users rather than acquiring them. The install funnel for Muse runs through surfaces already carrying billions of daily sessions, a distribution advantage OpenAI cannot replicate without a comparable social graph.
Meta launched Muse on 8 September 2026, available in the US and Canada through a dedicated iOS and Android app and through WhatsApp integration.[2] Each user's agent runs inside a dedicated cloud environment Meta calls Muse Secure VM, with paid tiers at US$20 and US$100 per month alongside a free option.[3]
What reviewers found
WIRED reviewers reported that Muse repeatedly prompted users to connect sensitive data sources, including bank accounts, email inboxes and photographs of meals for calorie estimates, raising questions about the data appetite sitting beneath the convenience pitch.[4] Meta spokesperson Emil Vazquez told WIRED: "Muse is the first personal AI agent built for everyone, with built-in protections and user controls that put people absolutely in charge of how they use it, any suggestion we didn't build with that in mind from the beginning is ludicrous."[4]
Vishal Shah, Meta's Vice President of AI Products, told an investor briefing: "It is impossible to say that there is never going to be a mistake, but every single part of the architecture has been designed to make this as safe, as secure, as private as we can possibly make it."[5] Muse remains available only in the US and Canada, with no confirmed date for a wider rollout.
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Zara Kincaid writes about artificial intelligence and search. Her focus is what happens to businesses when the front page of the internet stops being a list of links and starts being an answer.
