Muse, Three Weeks In: Five Million Downloads, One Amazon Ban, and What to Connect

Meta launched Muse on September 8 as a personal AI agent that does tasks rather than just answering questions. We covered the launch and the trust question it raised. Three weeks later, it is one of the fastest-growing apps in the United States, it has a long list of new partners and features, it has been locked out of Amazon, and it has had its first public stumbles.

Here is what changed, what is confirmed, and how to use it without handing over more than you need to.

What is new

Most of the announcements came at Meta's Connect event on September 23. Several are announced rather than available, so check before you plan around them.

• Muse on the Mac. Muse can now work on your desktop, operating apps, files, calendar, notes and messages on your behalf.
• Smart glasses. Muse is coming to Meta's glasses, answering to a wake word.
• Its own email address. Meta says Muse will soon have an address you can forward messages to or copy into a thread. This is listed as coming soon.
• A face. A new model, Muse Realtime Avatar, will let you video chat with an animated version of your agent. Also coming soon.
• Shopping and payments. Meta named Walmart, Best Buy, Gap, Sephora and Wayfair as shopping partners, added PayPal for payments, and said Expedia for travel and Instacart for groceries are on the way. Shopify agreed on September 21 to let Muse check out through Shop Pay on Shopify stores. GeekWire also lists GameStop and OpenTable among Meta's partners.
• Muse for Small Business. On September 29, Meta launched a version aimed at small firms. It connects to tools such as Shopify, Slack, Dropbox, Intuit QuickBooks, Stripe, Canva, Klaviyo and Notion, and to Instagram professional analytics, Facebook Pages and Meta ad accounts. It is free with usage limits, with paid plans for more.

Mark Zuckerberg also explained how Meta expects to make money from Muse: by keeping it free for heavy use and, over time, taking a small fee from transactions it completes. He did not say who pays that fee, how large it will be or when it starts. For now, Shopify's help page for selling through Meta lists no fees beyond standard payment processing, so if you sell through Muse, watch that page.

How many people use it

By Sensor Tower's estimate, Muse passed 5 million US downloads in 22 days, faster than ChatGPT (56 days), Grok (103) or Claude (492) reached the same mark. It has also held the top spot among free apps on the US App Store. Two cautions. These are third-party estimates, not Meta's figures, and other trackers have published lower totals. And the growth was bought as well as earned: Sensor Tower estimates Muse received up to half of Meta's own daily in-app advertising space during part of September.

Pricing and where it works

• Free: to start, with limits.
• Power: $20 a month.
• Maximum: $100 a month, for heavy use.
• Where: the United States only, on iOS, Android, the web at muse.ai, WhatsApp and now the Mac. Meta has given no date for other countries, so readers in Canada and Francophone Africa cannot use it yet.

The controversies

Amazon. On September 20, Amazon blocked Muse from shopping on Amazon.com, saying the agent did not identify itself, arrived without notice and appeared to store customers' credentials. Meta says Muse never sees passwords or payment details. Our full report covers what that means for anyone who sells online. In practice, CNN's reviewer found that shopping tasks were often easier to do by hand, because of blocks like Amazon's and retailers stopping automated clicks at checkout.

The Marketplace buyer. YouTuber Matt Robb said Muse, handling his Facebook Marketplace listing for a keyboard, accepted a low offer and shared his address, and a buyer turned up at his door. Meta told him a permission setting had given Muse more freedom than he realised, and said earlier reviews of similar reports found Muse was "following direct instructions and correctly asked for permission." Both accounts can be true, and that is the lesson: what you approved once may cover more than you think.

Private messages. On September 30, Meta disputed a claim by Inc. columnist Jason Aten that Muse on his Mac had read his Messages without permission. Meta executives said reading Messages requires the user to switch on both a Muse connector and a macOS permission called Full Disk Access, and is entirely opt-in. The dispute is unresolved in public.

Who pays for mistakes. Moneywise reported that Meta's terms make users responsible for every transaction Muse makes on their behalf, warn that some transactions cannot be reversed, and cap Meta's liability at $250 or what the user paid Meta in the previous year, whichever is greater.

Should you use it? A practical setup

Muse can be genuinely useful: CNN's reviewer had it book a date night, plan a move and write a trip email, while noting it also suggested restaurants that had closed years ago. The safe approach is to start small and widen access only when it has earned it.

Connect first: low-risk tools where a mistake is visible and easy to undo, such as your calendar, notes and a shared planning document. Use it to research and draft rather than to send and pay.

Connect carefully: email. Meta lets you give read access without write access. Start there. An agent that can read your inbox can also read everyone who writes to you, which matters for clients and colleagues.

Keep out, for now: your main bank account, your password manager, Full Disk Access on a Mac, and any account where one wrong action is expensive, such as an ad account with a large daily budget or your company's accounting.

Settings to check today:

• Keep approval on for purchases and messages. Meta says Muse asks you to approve the exact details of every purchase. Read each prompt; do not tap through.
• Pay with a card that has a low limit, or a separate card used only for Muse. The terms say setting limits is your job.
• Turn off training if you prefer. Meta says Muse conversations are not shared with its advertising systems, but they can be used to train its models unless you switch that off under Data controls.
• Review what you have connected every week, and remove anything you are not using.

For business owners trying Muse for Small Business, the same rules apply with higher stakes. Connect analytics before anything that spends money, and use a separate login with limited permissions where your tools allow it.

The principle underneath is one we teach in the Building AI Apps and Agents track: give an agent the least access that does the job, keep credentials and payment details out of its direct reach, and require a human to approve anything that spends money or speaks for you. It applies just as much when you are the user rather than the builder.

Questions You Should Be Asking

• Which of my accounts does Muse need, and which did I connect because it was easy?
• Does every purchase come back to me for approval, and do I actually read it?
• If Muse sends the wrong message to a client, how would I find out?
• Have I turned off model training, if I do not want my tasks used for it?

What To Watch Next

Three things: whether the announced features (the email address, the avatar, Expedia and Instacart) actually ship and when; how large Meta's transaction fee turns out to be and who pays it; and whether Muse launches outside the United States. The first will tell you how much of Connect was a roadmap. The last will tell most of our readers when this guide starts to apply to them.

Sources

• TechCrunch: Everything new coming to Meta's AI agent Muse
• CNN: Meta wants Muse to be part of your everyday life
• Engadget: Meta's Muse AI agent is coming to its AI glasses
• 9to5Mac: Meta AI launches Muse personal agent, including apps for iPhone and Mac
• GeekWire: Amazon blocks Meta's Muse AI assistant in new standoff over agentic shopping
• PYMNTS: Shopify brings Shop Pay checkout to Meta's Muse AI agent
• TechCrunch: Meta is expanding its AI agent Muse to small businesses
• CNBC: Meta launches Muse for Small Business
• Axios: Meta takes fresh aim at businesses with Muse tools
• Yahoo Finance: Zuckerberg says Muse AI agent will take a small fee from transactions
• MediaNama: Meta Muse AI agent will earn from transaction fees, not ads
• Forbes: Meta's Muse AI assistant hits 5 million downloads
• 9to5Mac: Meta's Muse crosses 5 million downloads amid massive advertising push
• The Neuron: Meta's Muse hit 5 million downloads; the bigger story is how it got there
• CNN: Meta says its Muse AI agent can do things for you. I put it to the test
• Axios: Meta debuts Muse, its long-planned personal AI agent
• Meta: Introducing Muse
• Axios: Inside Meta's privacy pivot for Muse
• Global News: Meta's AI agent Muse is stirring growing privacy fears
• Dexerto: Meta responds after Muse AI gave a stranger a YouTuber's home address
• Yahoo Tech: YouTuber says Muse gave his address to a Facebook Marketplace buyer
• TechCrunch: Meta disputes claim that Muse read a user's private messages without permission
• The Next Web: Meta denies its Muse AI agent read a journalist's private messages
• Moneywise: Meta's own fine print says you're responsible for every purchase Muse makes