Meta Muse AI Agent Secures 83,000 US Downloads Despite Privacy Concerns and Trust Issues

Reviewed byNidhi Govil

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Meta launched Muse, its personal AI agent designed to automate digital tasks like shopping and email management. The app hit 83,000 iOS downloads and ranked No. 2 on the App Store. But the launch trails behind Threads' 4.3 million first-day downloads and raises questions about consumer trust given Meta's privacy track record and an $18 billion settlement.

Meta Muse Climbs to No. 2 on App Store With 83,000 Downloads

Meta's AI agent Muse secured over 83,000 iOS downloads in the United States following its Tuesday launch, pushing it to the No. 2 position on the App Store's Top Charts

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. The personal AI agent represents one of Meta's biggest bets on consumer AI to date, built by Meta Superintelligence Labs under CEO Mark Zuckerberg's vision that agentic AI will transform how everyday users navigate the internet

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Source: Phandroid

Source: Phandroid

The app is available through dedicated iOS and Android apps, the website Muse.ai, and directly through WhatsApp messaging, with Meta's AI glasses integration coming soon

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. Users can try Muse for free up to 100 million tokens per week, with subscription tiers at $20-per-month for Power and $100-per-month for Maximum plans as usage increases

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Launch Numbers Trail Behind Meta's Previous AI Releases

While Muse climbed from 4th position on Wednesday to No. 2 by today, its launch pales compared to other recent Meta app debuts

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. Threads captured more than 4.3 million U.S. downloads on its launch day, and the Meta AI app saw 108,000 U.S. downloads during its debut

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. ChatGPT topped half a million installs in the U.S. in less than a week after its arrival, averaging 83,300 downloads daily—a number that took Muse twice the time to achieve

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On Android, Muse has only achieved a rank of No. 338 in the Productivity category on Google Play's app marketplace

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. The slower uptake may reflect growing consumer skepticism about Meta's handling of user data, particularly given the launch timing just days after Meta agreed to a massive $18 billion multistate settlement in a lawsuit over social media's consumer harms

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Automate Digital Tasks With Built-In App Connectors

The AI-powered productivity assistant works by connecting to users' apps and services that are part of everyday workflows, including email, calendars, payments, health and fitness apps, smart home devices, dining, shopping, music and events

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. Powered by Meta's Muse Spark AI model, the agent ships with built-in connectors for several services, with plans to add more over time

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Source: Fast Company

Source: Fast Company

Muse can send emails, book travel, lower bills, fill out forms, create plans, turn recipe reels into grocery lists, send party invitations, and make purchases

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. For online shopping, Muse leverages Stripe Link for checkout, which issues a single-use card number so agents aren't entering a person's real financial information across the internet

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. Meta says Muse is the first AI agent covered by Link's purchase protections for agents, which guarantees no-fee returns

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Secure Virtual Machine Architecture Addresses Privacy Concerns

Meta claims Muse runs in its own dedicated secure computer with its own browser, called Muse Secure VM, which offers various privacy, safety, and security protections over customers' data

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. The architecture isolates each user's activity in a virtual machine to keep untrusted data from the web and any integrations separate from the part of the agent that can actually take action on a user's behalf

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Source: Axios

Source: Axios

A separate Sentinel system runs on that same virtual machine but is kept apart from Muse at the system level, acting as a virtual traffic cop that looks out for everything moving out of the VM

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. David Singleton, Meta Superintelligence Lab's vice president of engineering for consumer products, notes that check-in prompts for humans come directly to the user and aren't filtered through the model, to protect against prompt injection attacks

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Meta is also developing Confidential VM, designed so each VM runs in a trusted execution environment where users manage their own access keys locally on their devices, meaning no one else, including Meta, can access that user's agent VM

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. This work involves Moxie Marlinspike, creator of the end-to-end encrypted messaging app Signal

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Trust Issues Shadow Meta's Entry Into Agentic AI Market

Despite Meta's documentation of security measures, the company faces significant trust issues given its history with data collection and privacy violations

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. Early testing revealed unsettling experiences with how much information Muse autonomously gleaned about users

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. One tester found that Muse rattled off very specific interests ranging from anime and CrossFit to Labrador retrievers and '90s nostalgia—many of the same topics that frequently pop up in Instagram Reels feeds

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When asked where it obtained this information, Muse explained it read it through Instagram's API data, which surfaces more than the UI does

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. While Singleton notes that Meta is barred by policy from accessing user data, it would still be technically possible

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. Users can opt out of allowing their data to be used for training

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Competition Heats Up in Consumer AI Agent Space

Meta is not alone in its pursuit of consumer-facing agentic AI. The competition includes Google's Gemini Spark, Anthropic's Claude Cowork, and particularly Instinct, a new AI agent that works over text messages and was recently valued at $2.5 billion

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. Despite security concerns and an overly broad privacy policy, Silicon Valley insiders have been raving about Instinct's capabilities

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Instinct has rolled out email addresses for all its users this week and announced it's building its own social network where one person's Instinct agent can talk to those belonging to their friends to coordinate plans

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. The company also launched integrations with Stripe and 1Password, and a location-sharing feature so the agent can take on actions that require knowing current location

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. With $350 million at its disposal and the speed at which it's shipping new features, Instinct appears positioned as the one to beat in the simple-to-use agents market aimed at everyday people

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Watch whether Meta can overcome its reputation challenges and convert early interest into sustained adoption as the agentic AI era takes shape. The company's ability to demonstrate genuine privacy protections and rebuild consumer trust will determine whether Muse becomes a meaningful player in this emerging market or another cautionary tale about moving fast without securing user confidence first.

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