By Christine Ji

Meta is quickly racking up downloads for its Muse AI assistant, but the next step for Mark Zuckerberg is getting users to make the agent part of their everyday routines

Meta recently unveiled a new lineup of AI-integrated hardware including new Ray Bans and a keychain-sized Muse Charm.

For the past week, Meta's artificial-intelligence assistant Muse has sat at the top of Apple's U.S. App Store charts.

The widespread popularity of the agent - a fuzzy customizable avatar capable of sending emails, booking reservations, making online purchases and more - has sent shares of Meta (META) on a tear. The stock is up 31% since the beginning of the month.

But in a cutthroat AI ecosystem, no agent or application can afford to get too comfortable. As other companies race to push out new models and products, Meta will need to translate Muse's initial buzz into an everyday consumer habit to stay in the lead. Can the social-media giant shape the next generation of user behavior?

According to a Thursday report from Sensor Tower, Muse has accumulated over 3.4 million downloads across the U.S. and Canada since its Sept. 8 launch. The report also highlighted that Grok Bot, SpaceX's (SPCX) multi-agent platform, has picked up 2.2 million downloads since its August launch. Another AI assistant, Instinct, has risen in popularity recently as well.

Morningstar analyst Malik Ahmed Khan believes that Meta has an unique advantage in growing its Muse platform given its existing distribution with Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. With the exception of Alphabet's (GOOGL) (GOOG) Google, "Meta is the only company that has experience scaling multiple platforms to multi-billion-user levels," Khan told MarketWatch.

Muse gives Meta a direct window into user habits which can help future product development, Khan added. The company has identified nearly 400 "musecases" ranging from auditing unnecessary subscriptions to negotiating parking tickets.

JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth was further encouraged by the company's path forward following Wednesday's Meta Connect 2026 developer conference. Meta announced the third generation of its flagship Ray-Ban smart glasses, its first camera-free audio glasses, lightweight Meta VR glasses and the keychain-sized Muse Charm. All of these devices are compatible with Muse through voice capabilities.

"Muse represents the centerpiece of Meta's AI vision," Anmuth wrote, citing Meta's expanding hardware and software ecosystem. Muse is also accessible through an increasing number of third-party connectors such as Walmart (WMT), Instacart (CART), Box (BOX) and Wayfair (W).

"We continue to believe this is the first of many steps to bring tens and potentially hundreds of millions of businesses onto Muse, and form the foundation for monetization," Anmuth said of Muse's e-commerce partnerships.

Meta also needs to prove that AI agents can achieve widespread adoption among everyday people. Muse Charm, a small hardware device that allows users to query Muse without a phone, could help the agent become a seamless part of people's everyday lives.

Muse Charm "gives Meta another access point to its growing AI ecosystem, complementing products such as its AI glasses and its broader suite of apps and service," Counterpoint principal analyst Anshika Jain wrote in a Thursday note. Still, Jain cautioned that its success hinges on offering enough utility to justify carrying an extra device.

There's also the question of security and privacy. In order for an agent to take actions on a user's behalf, it needs access to sensitive personal data such as email accounts, payment credentials and third-party logins.

Security concerns remain an issue for companies across the industry, according to Urday Cheruvu, portfolio manager at Harding Loevner. "I'm not sure the trust is there for anyone, the reason being that this is so early and so new," Cheruvu told MarketWatch.

Meta has taken steps to ensure user privacy. Each user's Muse agent runs in a dedicated computer in the cloud called Muse Secure VM. Meta said it doesn't share any data from Muse with its core ad business. Later this year, Meta plans to roll out Muse Confidential VM, an upgraded security model that encrypts all user conversations and data behind a private key inaccessible even to Meta itself.

For now, Muse usage is "skewed among early adopters," Cheruvu said. But Cheruvu expects Meta to promote different Muse use cases on Instagram Reels and its other platforms, boosting adoption and creating a barrier to entry for competitors.

"Muse is connected to Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram," Cheruvu said. "It already knows so much...so it can anticipate what you want better."

-Christine Ji

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