Mark Zuckerberg says Meta is ‘entering a new phase’ with Muse

It’s only been a few weeks since Meta introduced Muse, but the company’s personal agent is already playing a central role in Meta’s plan to start making money from its massive investment in AI. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company is already working on monetizing the agent and that he expects Muse to eventually generate more revenue per user than Facebook and Instagram.

Even though Muse is only available in the United States and Canada, Meta has already seen significant adoption of the agent. Zuckerberg said more than 10 million people have started using it since it was rolled out in early September. “Now that Muse is clearly product-market fit, we’re moving into a new phase and a more operational phase focused on its development,” Zuckerberg said during the company’s third-quarter earnings conference call Wednesday. “We plan to grow Muse to serve billions of people.”

Muse is also much more expensive for Meta to operate than its other services, and Zuckerberg said the company is already working on its plans to monetize the agent. Meta plans to create “commerce tools” that will allow it to charge businesses fees for transactions facilitated by its agent, the CEO said. He noted that shopping is currently the “most common” use case for the agent and that people spend an average of $200 per purchase with Muse. Meta will also integrate its AI subscriptions to people and business owners who use the agent more.

Zuckerberg predicted that Muse’s revenue could eventually exceed the money it currently makes from its apps, at least by some metrics. “The average revenue per U.S. user for our current family of app users is several hundred dollars per year, and we expect Muse to reach an even higher level over time due to the volume of commerce we are already seeing,” Zuckerberg said.

Muse is also “central” to Meta’s plans to make more money from its AI glasses, according to Zuckerberg. Although the company isn’t currently “making big profits on the hardware” it sells, adding Muse to the product will help Meta sell more AI subscriptions, Zuckerberg predicted.

Meta introduced Muse on its smart glasses last month at Connect. The company said users will be able to talk to their agent in the same way they can currently chat with Meta AI, and will be able to check in on tasks or add items to their agent’s to-do list. Meta didn’t say whether Muse on its glasses would require a separate subscription, but Zuckerberg’s statements suggest that at least some Muse features will be paid for on the glasses. (The company has considered charging for other features of the glasses, including its upcoming hearing-enhancing capability.) Muse will be available on Meta’s glasses “next month,” Zuckerberg said.