Mark Zuckerberg debe sus siete vidas al efecto red
El nuevo asistente de IA de Meta arrasa en descargas pese a una larga lista de tropiezos de la compañía
Mark Zuckerberg credits the recent success of Meta Platforms' artificial intelligence (AI) assistant Muse to the desire of consumers to avoid tedious tasks. The AI assistant, which was introduced at the beginning of the month, has outperformed competitors like ChatGPT and Claude. Despite multiple setbacks, Meta's seven billion users provide the safety net that allows the company to experiment.
Muse can handle various mundane tasks such as sending emails, booking travel, negotiating lower bills, and making purchases. The application reached the top spot in Apple's US app store and has over 2.5 million downloads, according to Sensor Tower. Initial success in Muse has driven up Meta's stock, closing at an 11% increase on Monday, adding nearly 175 billion euros to the company's market value.
The company's basic version of Muse is free, but Meta expects to charge around 17 euros per month for additional services and up to 87 euros for heavy users. The increase in Meta's value, in line with the app's popularity, implies an additional 21 billion euros in revenue, assuming the company's average multiple over the past two years of eight times earnings.
However, Meta is a roller coaster of possibilities, and investors should brace for potential drops given its history. In July, the company's stock dropped 8% after reporting a sharp decline in free cash flow due to AI expenses. A month later, Meta agreed to pay 15.7 billion euros to settle lawsuits filed by several U.S. states over the safety of teenagers and addiction on Facebook and Instagram.
Meta's Ray-Ban smart glasses, dubbed the "pervert glasses," are at the center of a privacy controversy, and Zuckerberg's bet on the metaverse has contributed to Reality Labs' accumulated losses reaching 70 billion euros. This list does not capture all of Meta's missteps, including allegations of election interference and its role in inciting massacres in Myanmar.
Despite these setbacks, the giant technology company remains resilient, as users continue to rely on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, with daily active users stable at 3.6 billion. The concern over providing sensitive data like credit card information to a robot for mundane tasks is not evident in Muse's downloads. This demonstrates the power of having over 40% of the world's population as users.
Even those with smaller networks show resilience. AOL, the dominant internet provider in the 1990s, only ceased its telephone connection service last year. Meta's critical mass hides its many failures.
Written by urgent.news from El Pais Economia's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
