Meta's Muse hits 10 million downloads amid privacy concerns

Meta's AI companion, Muse, has achieved rapid adoption, reaching 10 million U.S. downloads within 40 days of its September debut. Sensor Tower data indicates that 10.2 million of these downloads occurred in the U.S., making Muse one of only 12 apps to reach this milestone in such a short period. The last application to achieve this was Meta's Threads in July 2023. To drive this growth, Meta allocated 39% of its total October advertising spend to Muse, a significant increase from 23% in September. Consequently, Muse ranked as the 21st largest U.S. brand by advertising impressions in October, up from 73rd the previous month.

Daily active users reached 2.5 million on October 16, representing a 15% week-over-week increase. Muse held the number one spot on the U.S. App Store for all days except October 19, when Kik briefly overtook it, and has maintained the top position on Google Play for the past 30 days. For comparison, ChatGPT recorded 3.7 million U.S. downloads in its first 40 days, while Grok and Claude reached 500,000 and 200,000 respectively. Despite this momentum, retention metrics show a 30% seven-day rate and a 23% fourteen-day rate, which outperform the average iOS app but trail Instagram and Facebook.

Security concerns have emerged alongside the growth. Security firm Clarock discovered that Muse's sharing feature allowed the enumeration of 6,800 links, exposing sensitive data including loan applications and internal revenue reviews. Meta temporarily disabled the feature to address the vulnerability. Analysts note that personal AI agents occupy a difficult retention space, lacking the dopamine-driven engagement of social media or the indispensable reliability of banking apps. Sensor Tower senior insights analyst Cara Lee attributed Meta's success to its ability to scale new apps by marketing them across existing services.