Meta's Muse is outpacing ChatGPT's early mobile launch

Meta’s newest AI app, Muse, could be the company’s next major hit, according to newly released estimates from market intelligence provider Apptopia. In its first 12 days on the market, Muse was downloaded more times on mobile devices than ChatGPT was in the 12 days after its own debut — a comparison that covers only the U.S. and Canada. Muse also had more daily active users than ChatGPT did at the same point, Apptopia found.

Until now, an exact apples-to-apples comparison between the two apps had been difficult, since they pursued different launch strategies. When ChatGPT arrived on mobile, it was available globally, but only on iOS. Muse, by contrast, launched on both Apple’s App Store and Google Play, but only in the U.S. and Canada.

To align the numbers, Apptopia looked only at iOS data for the U.S. and Canada for both apps during their first 12 days. In that subset, Muse saw 1.8 million downloads to ChatGPT’s 1.3 million. Overall, Muse has logged 2.8 million total installs globally in its first 12 days, Apptopia said, and its growth hasn’t stalled: the app has climbed from its initial No. 2 spot to No. 1 on the U.S. App Store, Business Insider reported Friday — a rank that put it above ChatGPT. Another analytics firm, Appfigures, said at the time that Muse had crossed 1 million downloads.

Apptopia’s data also shows Muse’s U.S. daily active users running higher than ChatGPT’s at the equivalent point after launch: 642,000 daily users for Muse compared with 231,000 for ChatGPT. Narrowing the comparison to iOS alone — to account for Muse’s Android availability, which ChatGPT lacked at launch — Muse still comes out ahead, with 359,000 daily active users on iOS, still above ChatGPT’s figures from that period.

Apptopia can only offer third-party estimates and has no direct access to Meta’s internal figures, but even taken as rough estimates, the numbers suggest Muse could have a shot at becoming Meta’s newest top app. Meta has already shown it can execute cross-promotion, having pushed Threads past 500 million users through heavy marketing and integration with Instagram and Facebook. Muse is positioned to get a similar push, since it connects with both of those apps and also works inside WhatsApp. Apptopia doesn’t have visibility into Meta’s cross-promotion or ad spending, but it noted that over 95% of Muse’s users are also Facebook users, and 63% are Instagram users. Meta, which has been asked for comment, has not yet shared public figures on Muse’s early adoption.

Why it matters

If the estimates hold, Muse could become Meta’s newest flagship app, leaning on the same cross-app promotion that turned Threads into a 500-million-user product — a distribution advantage OpenAI’s standalone ChatGPT app doesn’t have.