Meta Muse Wants to Run Your Life, and Analyst Says the Winner Will Be Whoever You Trust ‘With Their Card and Their Habits’

Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META) wants Muse to be the artificial intelligence agent people run their lives through. A decade from now, the winner may be whoever customers trust with their payments, and Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) are in that race too.

Trust Beats the Model

Technology analyst Luke Lango and Futurum Chief Market Strategist Shay Boloor told Benzinga the AI model may be the “least durable advantage” because capability is converging and costs keep falling.

Lango, the editor of Innovation Investor, said the lasting edge belongs to the agent people trust “with their card and their habits.” Boloor said it would be “memory and trust accumulated over years.”

Meanwhile, Muse has passed 10.9 million downloads since its September debut, including 10.2 million in the U.S., according to Sensor Tower data reported by TechCrunch. Only 11 other apps have reached 10 million U.S. downloads within 40 days.

U.S. seven-day retention was 30%, compared with an average of 19% for rivals including OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, and Space Exploration Technologies Corp.’s Grok.

Apple and Amazon Face Different Tests

Lango said Apple is “quietly well-placed” because it has the device, the wallet, and consumers’ trust.

Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan sees a risk, as Apple “can keep every handset sale and still lose discovery, referral, and transaction initiation” to Muse. He said Siri has yet to match Muse on background tasks, third-party actions, and payments.

Amazon has gone the other way. It blocked Muse from its site while Shopify Inc. and PayPal Holdings Inc. signed on.

Lango believes Amazon is most at risk if the wall stays up after consumers start shopping through agents.

One Default Agent, and Room for a New Giant

The analysts expect the market to settle on one default agent, built into the phone, browser or messaging app and free or bundled for most users.

Lango does not think consumers will pay for several of them and the rest will become features.

That does not mean the incumbents win by default.

Boloor said he would be surprised if the shift to AI agents did not “create new winners”, and Lango named OpenAI as a candidate for a new giant, even though he said incumbents are better placed because they own distribution and can afford the capital spending.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said earlier this month that he is prepared to spend up to $200 billion on AI to “really lead in the area for decades to come.”

Price Action: On Tuesday, Meta’s stock closed 1.59% lower at $694.25 and rose 0.11% in extended trading to $695.

Benzinga Edge rankings indicate Meta’s stock has a Momentum score in the 59th percentile and a Growth score in the 76th percentile.

Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.

Photo Courtesy: Shay Baloor