Meta's AI agent Muse climbs to No. 2 on the US App Store

Meta’s new AI agent app, Muse, has climbed to the No. 2 position on the U.S. App Store’s Top Charts, according to data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower shared following the app’s Tuesday launch. Muse has been downloaded north of 83,000 times on iOS in the United States, the only market where it’s currently available.

That launch pace pales next to Meta’s other recent app debuts. Threads was downloaded more than 4.3 million times in the U.S. on its first day, and the Meta AI app saw 108,000 U.S. downloads during its debut. Muse also trails ChatGPT’s early trajectory: OpenAI’s chatbot topped half a million U.S. installs in under a week after launch — an average of roughly 83,300 downloads a day — a pace it took Muse twice as long to match. Still, Muse’s climb from fourth place on Wednesday to No. 2 today suggests the slower start doesn’t necessarily mean a weak launch. Its Android counterpart is faring less well, ranking No. 338 in Google Play’s Productivity category, with download figures not yet available; the app is also accessible via the web and WhatsApp, neither counted in these estimates.

Meta is betting that AI agents that proactively get things done for users will define the next era of consumer AI, and Muse represents one of its biggest wagers on that thesis. It faces competition from Instinct, a text-message-based agent recently valued at $2.5 billion that has drawn enthusiasm from Silicon Valley insiders despite security concerns and a broad, permissive privacy policy. Backed by $350 million, Instinct has shipped features quickly, including email addresses for all users, a social layer letting people’s agents coordinate with friends’ agents, and recent integrations with Stripe and 1Password plus a location-sharing feature.

Muse’s debut also lands awkwardly: the app, which requires users to hand Meta more personal information, launched just days after Meta agreed to an $18 billion multistate settlement over a lawsuit tied to social media’s consumer harms — one of several legal setbacks the company has faced alongside past data scandals and FTC privacy fines.

Why it matters

Muse’s slower-than-expected takeoff suggests consumers may be more cautious about handing Meta additional personal data than they were with past app launches, even as the company stakes a major bet on agentic AI becoming the next consumer platform.