Meta’s latest push into consumer artificial intelligence is already making serious noise across smartphone app stores. Just two weeks after its September 8 rollout, the company’s new personal AI assistant, Muse, climbed to the top spot among free apps on both Apple‘s iOS App Store and Google Play in the U.S., pulling ahead of established rivals like OpenAI‘s ChatGPT.
Data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower shows that Muse crossed 730,000 downloads within its first five days. By its thirteenth day, total installations topped 2.5 million globally—split between 1.5 million on iOS and 1.1 million on Android. Analytics firm Apptopia reported even higher traction, estimating 2.8 million global installs in twelve days and noting that Muse outperformed ChatGPT in early U.S. and Canadian iOS downloads during their equivalent post-launch periods (via CNBC).
How Muse stacks up against Claude, Grok, and ChatGPT
In head-to-head comparisons during the same 13-day post-launch timeframe, Muse comfortably outpaced several established competitor apps. Sensor Tower figures reveal that Anthropic’s Claude recorded 400,000 downloads, while xAI’s Grok logged 200,000.
ChatGPT originally generated 3.1 million downloads during its own initial debut period. Meanwhile, Muse managed to outrank the popular chatbot on daily U.S. store charts over recent days. To help cover computing costs, Meta is offering the app for free alongside optional paid subscription tiers priced at $20 and $100 per month for heavy users.
Unlike standard chatbots that simply answer questions, Muse operates as an autonomous agent. Powered by Meta’s Muse Spark family of models, it runs inside a dedicated virtual environment to perform multi-step web tasks. Users can instruct the assistant to fill out online forms, clear out email inboxes, organize calendars, book travel reservations, and handle web shopping.
Web access features and early merchant reactions
Muse pulls context from internal Meta ecosystem services like Instagram and Facebook Marketplace. It can also fetch data from linked external accounts including Gmail, Google Calendar, and OpenTable. To address users’ concerns about handling personal data, Meta designed a dedicated environment named Muse Secure VM and a filter named Sentinel review filter to review automated web actions before they are executed.
However, the assistant’s ability to browse external websites has already run into mixed reactions across the e-commerce landscape. Retail giant Amazon blocked Muse from accessing its store, citing security concerns and noting that Meta did not give advance notice or request permission to scrape account data or process transactions on behalf of shoppers.
Shopify, by contrast, fully embraced the new tool, partnering with Meta to enable seamless agentic checkout directly across its network of online storefronts.
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