Meta’s Muse triggers stock slide for banks and travel agencies

Meta launched its personal AI agent, Muse, on September 8, 2026, and Wall Street spent the following two weeks figuring out who wins and who loses. The answer, at least so far: Meta wins, and pretty much everyone else in its path is nervously refreshing their stock tickers. Muse grabbed 2.5 million US downloads within its first two weeks, landing it at the top of the Apple App Store charts. Meta shares climbed more than 20% from launch, including an 11.43% single-day jump on September 21. That kind of move, for a company Meta’s size, is not a rounding error. What Muse actually does, and why that matters Muse is built to handle the kind of tasks people procrastinate on: booking travel, managing email, and navigating financial decisions. On the travel side, it connects to over 500 airlines through Duffel API integration, meaning it can search, compare, and book without the user ever visiting Expedia or Booking Holdings. On September 22, the market started pricing in that restructuring. Expedia shares fell 3.7% while Booking Holdings dropped 3.9%. The S&P 500 Financials Index slid up to 2.4%, touching its lowest point since July. JPMorgan and Wells Fargo each fell more than 2.5%, ...