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Shares of social media giant Meta surged this week to levels last seen in the summer of 2025, driven by investor interest in the company’s new artificial intelligence-powered assistant, or agent, called Muse, AFP reported.
Investors see Muse as a potential new source of revenue for Meta beyond advertising, which currently accounts for almost all of the company’s income.
Meta shares rose 4.5% on Thursday, following a gain of more than 11% on Monday—the company’s biggest single-day increase since April 2025.
The shares were trading at around $778, up sharply from about $525 in late March. The earlier decline followed two court rulings concerning the impact of Meta’s social media platforms on young people’s mental health.
Meta’s shares also fell in late July amid concerns over the company’s heavy spending on artificial intelligence. Its AI-related expenditure could reach $145 billion this year.
Muse was launched in the United States on September 8 and in Canada on September 18. It is currently available only in those two countries.
The AI agent can perform tasks on behalf of users, including booking travel, sending emails and making online purchases.
Muse is available free of charge to users aged 18 and above, with usage limits. Optional subscriptions costing $20 and $100 per month are available for heavier use.
App analytics firm AppTopia said Muse had been downloaded 1.8 million times on iPhones in North America in less than two weeks after its launch. By comparison, OpenAI’s ChatGPT recorded 1.3 million downloads during the same period after its mobile app launch in May 2023.
At its annual Connect conference on Wednesday, Meta said Muse would soon be available on its smart glasses. The company also announced partnerships with retailers such as Walmart, potentially allowing it to earn commissions from purchases made through Muse.
However, Amazon blocked Muse from accessing its website on Sunday, alleging that Meta’s AI agent did not identify itself as an AI agent while browsing the site and had stored customers’ login credentials. Meta said Muse cannot access users’ passwords or payment information.
Investment bank JPMorgan raised its price target for Meta to $920 on Thursday, saying Muse could become the most widely used consumer AI application after ChatGPT.
Some analysts remain cautious. A recent Oppenheimer survey found that only 8% of Americans trust Meta to store passwords for other apps, compared with 30% for Google.
Meta’s huge user base could nevertheless provide an advantage in expanding Muse. The company says more than 3.6 billion people use its platforms every day.
Meta also launched Threads in 2023 as a rival to X, formerly Twitter. Although Threads attracted 100 million sign-ups within five days, its growth later slowed. According to TechCrunch, it had around 140 million daily active users in January this year.
