Meta Muse has only been available for a few weeks, but the personal AI agent is already central to the company’s plan to start making money from its massive artificial intelligence investment. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the company’s third-quarter earnings call Wednesday that Meta is already working on monetizing the agent, and he expects it to eventually generate more revenue per user than Facebook and Instagram.
Even though Meta Muse is only available in the US and Canada, adoption has been significant. Zuckerberg said more than 10 million people have started using the agent since its early September rollout. “Now that Muse has clear product market fit, we are entering a new phase and a more operational phase that is focused on scaling it,” he said. “We expect to grow Muse to serve billions of people.”
Why Meta Muse Costs More to Run
Meta Muse is significantly more expensive for Meta to operate compared with its other services. That reality is part of why the company is already working on monetization plans. Zuckerberg outlined a few ways Meta intends to turn the agent into a revenue driver.
Meta plans to build commerce tools that will allow it to charge businesses fees for transactions facilitated by the agent. Shopping is currently the most common use case for the agent, according to the CEO, and people are spending an average of $200 per purchase with Meta Muse. The company will also incorporate AI subscriptions for people and business owners who use the agent more heavily.
Revenue Could Surpass the Apps
Zuckerberg predicted that revenue from Meta Muse could eventually surpass the money Meta currently makes from its apps, at least by some metrics. He pointed to the spending behavior already visible among users.
“The average revenue per American user for our existing family of apps users is several hundreds of dollars annually, and we expect that Muse will reach an even higher level over time due to the amount of commerce that we already see taking place,” he said.
That is a bold projection for an agent that launched in early September and is still limited to two countries. It also signals how central Meta Muse is to the company’s broader AI strategy, rather than a side experiment.
Meta Muse and the Smart Glasses Connection
Meta Muse is also central to Meta’s plans to make more money from its AI glasses, according to Zuckerberg. The company does not currently make a large profit on the hardware it sells, but adding Meta Muse to the product will help Meta sell more AI subscriptions, he predicted.
Meta previewed Muse on its smart glasses last month during Connect. The company said users will be able to talk to their agent in much the same way they can currently chat with Meta AI. They will also be able to check in on tasks or add items to their agent’s to-do list.
Meta did not specify whether Meta Muse on its glasses would require a separate subscription. However, Zuckerberg’s statements suggest that at least some Muse features will be paywalled on the glasses. The company has contemplated upcharging for other glasses features, including its upcoming hearing enhancement ability. Muse will be available on Meta’s glasses next month, Zuckerberg said.
What the New Phase Means
The shift Zuckerberg describes is from building a product to scaling a business. Meta Muse found what the CEO calls clear product market fit with more than 10 million users. The next phase is about operating it at a much larger scale, serving billions of people, and charging for the commerce and subscriptions that flow through it.
That includes several interconnected revenue streams: transaction fees on shopping, AI subscriptions for heavy users, and subscriptions tied to the glasses. Together, they represent Meta’s answer to the question of how to earn a return on its AI spending.
For now, Meta Muse is a US and Canada product, and the roadmap points toward expansion and deeper integration with hardware. The glasses launch next month will be the first real test of whether Zuckerberg’s subscription prediction holds. The commerce tools will test whether shopping through an AI agent becomes a meaningful business.
Zuckerberg’s claim that Meta Muse could out-earn the apps on a per-user basis is ambitious. Still, the combination of $200 average purchases, 10 million early users, and a planned hardware rollout gives Meta several levers to pull. Whether those levers deliver on the CEO’s expectations will define the next phase of Meta’s AI business.
Meta Muse is no longer just a product announcement. It is now the centerpiece of how Meta intends to make its AI investment pay off.
