Mark Zuckerberg says over 10 million people used Meta’s Muse—and demand was so high, he had to get Stripe to raise credit limits

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared on the company's Oct. 21 earnings call that over 10 million individuals in Canada and the United States had established personal AI agents, known as Muse, since their launch on Sept. 8. Zuckerberg remarked that this exceeded two times the user base of Threads at its inception or the user base of other AI applications.

Muse is equipped to perform multi-step tasks like web browsing, email correspondence, and travel planning. According to Zuckerberg, a quarter of Muse users utilize it daily, with shopping being the most prevalent application, averaging purchases over $200. The surge in demand prompted Meta to collaborate with payment processor Stripe to elevate credit limits during the initial week, though the exact increase was not disclosed.

This early shopping activity presents an opportunity for Meta to generate revenue through fees charged to businesses when Muse facilitates a purchase. Although the service remains free for consumers unless they opt for additional tokens or advanced models, Meta anticipates Muse to yield even greater revenue per user as shopping activity expands.

Meta is also exploring a network where personal AI agents interact with businesses' AI agents instead of users navigating websites. Meta's CFO, Susan Li, stated that the company is developing a standard with partners like Shopify and Walmart, called the Personal Agent Protocol, to facilitate secure interactions between consumers' agents and businesses' agents.

While this could shift control of the shopping experience to Meta, Li acknowledged that adoption might be uneven among businesses concerned about relinquishing customer relationships. Meta has already invested nearly $35 billion in capex in the third quarter, driven by AI servers, data centers, and network infrastructure, and reported negative free cash flow of $2.1 billion.

Li anticipates capex to range between $135 billion and $145 billion for the year, compared to $72.2 billion last year. The company aims to eventually serve more than 1 billion Muse users, but this requires increased compute efficiency. Meta has traditionally prioritized user acquisition before monetization, but Zuckerberg noted that Meta intends to begin monetizing Muse earlier than usual due to the high costs of running the agent and the substantial shopping activity already occurring.