Meta (META.US) hits the $30 trillion AI smart circuit! Big horse strength: Muse is the largest “unpriced call option” with the stock price

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Meta (META.US) stocks closed up 6.55% on Wednesday, hitting a new high of nearly 2 months. According to the news, Meta officially released the personal artificial intelligence agent (AI Agent) Muse on Wednesday. Unlike traditional conversational AI, this assistant can independently complete tasks such as sending emails and booking trips on behalf of users. Initially, it was only open to US users.

Muse is driven by Meta's latest AI model, Muse Spark 1.3, and can seamlessly access other Meta applications. Meta wants to make this product available to the billions of users already using its social media apps. Compared to competing products, the Muse interface is closer to everyday chat, and the entry threshold is lower. Outsiders believe that Meta is betting that as long as smart devices are made simpler, the public is more willing to integrate them into everyday life.

Morgan Stanley pointed out in a research report released on Wednesday that Meta's entry means that competition for the “consumer intelligence” market with a total potential market (TAM) of 30 trillion US dollars is getting closer. In the research report, the bank gave information on why it thought Meta might win, what investors need to pay attention to, and what this means for other downstream players such as Google (GOOGL.US). The bank maintained its “overweight” rating on Meta, saying it is still the preferred stock, with a target price of $775, which is nearly 19% higher than the stock's closing price of $653.69 on Wednesday.

What are Meta's advantages?

Damo pointed out that Muse can help users automate various tasks, including online shopping, travel, ticketing, arranging reservations/managing calendars, sending emails, and other usage scenarios. Although the agent can perform various tasks autonomously, users still need to verify the completion of sensitive operations such as purchases/payments before final completion. It's worth noting that Muse is an independent app from Instagram, Facebook, or Meta, and currently doesn't share data with Meta's advertising system.

Damo believes that leading technology platforms with large-scale distribution capabilities and unique and huge data sets, such as Meta and Google, are in an advantageous position to create personalized consumer intelligence products, enhance product usability, and achieve large-scale user adoption.

This is where Meta's advantage and opportunity lies. The bank will pay close attention to consumer adoption and the gradual integration of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp data into the Muse smart system over time. If combined with other monetized apps and the integration of personalized data sets — including Gmail — this could give Meta an advantage, create more personalized agents, and spawn new monetized user behaviors.

The entry price of the product is also a notable advantage, and this advantage is closely related to the effect of scale. For a fee, Muse offers a free version and two monthly subscriptions of $20 and $100. Damo anticipates that Meta's new model, Watermelon (which is expected to be launched this fall), will only further enhance the product's performance.

What does it mean for Meta and Google stock prices?

As far as Meta is concerned, whether the Muse smart can drive incremental monetization of user behavior is one of Meta's largest potential “call options” currently valued at 18 times earnings per share in 2028, which have not yet been included in the stock price. In other words, the market is currently not counting Muse's potential success into the stock's valuation. Investors need to see user adoption rates and monetization behavior before Meta's stock price is further revalued.

On the other hand, if Meta's Muse is favored by users and drives monetized user behavior at the top of the funnel, it may pose a new potential threat to Google's search business, and this risk has also not been factored into Google's valuation. This just further highlights the importance of Google's own product innovation and delivery, including product innovation across search and YouTube, and Gemini 4's ability to return to the cutting edge of technology.