Meta: Muse AI Agent Passes 10M Users, Shopping Leads the Way
· Cortex Solutions
Meta told investors on October 21 that its Muse AI agent passed 10 million users, with shopping the top use case. What it means for Saudi businesses selling online.
Meta announced during its third-quarter earnings call with investors on Wednesday, October 21, 2026, that its personal AI agent Muse has passed 10 million users, and that shopping has become its top use case. The news was reported by TechCrunch in an article by Sarah Perez dated October 21, and covered by CNBC in its live coverage of Meta's results the same day. It is a clear sign that AI is moving from conversation to execution: an agent that searches, compares and buys on the user's behalf.
What exactly did Meta announce?
According to CNBC, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said more than 10 million people in the United States and Canada have set up Muse personal agents over the past month and a half; Muse launched in September. TechCrunch noted that the figure confirms estimates published earlier in the week by market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.
The key figures both sources attributed to Zuckerberg:
- Roughly 25% of people who have set up Muse use it on any given day, meaning about a quarter of users are daily users.
- Shopping is the biggest use case: he said more than a quarter of users are shopping through the agent, with an average purchase size of over $200.
- Muse relies on fintech company Plaid's connector to complete purchases. TechCrunch quoted Zuckerberg saying Plaid told Meta it had not seen activity like this through its connector on any other service.
- Other popular uses include personal productivity tasks such as connecting the agent to email and calendars.
Privacy, cost and the business model
Zuckerberg said, per TechCrunch, that users' willingness to connect their email and calendars reflects trust in the security feature called Muse Secure VM, and that a forthcoming Muse Confidential VM will prevent even Meta from seeing users' content.
He said Muse has reached product-market fit and that the focus now shifts to scaling, growing revenue and cutting compute costs. He added that Meta is building capacity to serve more than a billion people over the next few years, and that while Muse is currently compute-intensive to run, Meta expects to improve its cost efficiency by more than 10x in the next year.
On monetization, Meta plans to keep Muse free for most users while taking a percentage of the commerce that happens through it, and charging power users. CNBC reported that Meta currently offers $20 and $100 monthly plans for power users, and that running the agent with its latest model, Muse Wonder, requires a subscription. Meta even expects, per TechCrunch, that Muse will eventually bring in more revenue per user than its current apps such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
From storefront to agent: the Muse network
The most important part for businesses is what Zuckerberg called the Muse network, where users' agents work with each other. TechCrunch quoted him saying that if you want to buy something, it is not just navigating to that business's website; it is talking to their agent. According to CNBC, Zuckerberg said the eventual aim is a business network of Muse agents focused on small businesses, followed by a version of Muse that people can bring into corporate environments.
Note that the sources refer to users in the United States and Canada and give no date for Muse availability in Saudi Arabia or the region.
What does this mean for Saudi businesses?
Even if Muse has not yet reached the Saudi market, the direction is clear: a growing share of purchase decisions will pass through AI agents that read a store's data, compare and pay. In practice this means:
- Your product data must be structured and accurate: prices, stock, specifications and return policies, because an agent reads data, not ads.
- Conversational channels are no longer optional. Customers used to ordering on WhatsApp will soon get used to ordering through an agent.
- Fast payment and integration between your store, inventory and invoicing become a requirement, because an agent will not wait for an employee to confirm availability by hand.
- Privacy and trust are decisive, as Meta's emphasis on data-protection features shows.
Businesses that prepare their systems today to be connected and machine-readable will be the first to benefit when this wave arrives. If you want to start automating your channels and connecting your systems with AI, see Cortex's AI agents and automation service: https://cortex.sa/services/ai-automation
Sources: TechCrunch, October 21, 2026, and CNBC's live coverage of Meta's Q3 results, October 21, 2026.