Meta’s AI agent Muse tops mobile app charts after launch

Meta just shipped the AI product it’s been telegraphing for years, and the early numbers suggest people are actually interested. Muse, the company’s new personal AI agent, climbed to the top of the US Apple App Store free apps chart by September 18, roughly ten days after its September 8 launch. That means it leapfrogged OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which had been comfortably parked near the top of the AI app rankings for months. Muse accumulated approximately 902,000 downloads in its first six days, a pace that outstripped Meta’s previous standalone AI app, though it still fell short of the viral frenzy that accompanied Threads’ debut in 2023. Not another chatbot What makes Muse different from the crowded field of AI assistants is its positioning as an agent rather than a conversationalist. Instead of just answering questions, Muse is designed to execute multi-step tasks: booking travel, managing calendars, coordinating across digital services. The app integrates with Gmail, Spotify, and Facebook, among other platforms. For actions that involve sensitive operations, like purchases or account changes, Muse keeps a human in the loop with approval prompts. Meta says the app runs on secure virtu...