Felix Laurent
Shopping is the most common use case for Meta Muse, the company's personal AI agent. Mark Zuckerberg said so on Meta's Q3 2026 earnings call on October 21. More than a quarter of Muse users shop through the agent, and the average purchase is over $200. We read the call and Meta's results release to see what the company disclosed and what it left out.
What Zuckerberg said about Muse
Meta launched Muse in the US on September 8. In about six weeks, more than 10 million people in the US and Canada set up a Muse personal agent, Zuckerberg said. About 25% of them use it on any given day.
He added that retention improves the longer early adopters keep using the agent. Meta has not published a retention curve to back that up.
Shopping came first among use cases. "The most common use case for Muse is shopping," Zuckerberg told analysts. CFO Susan Li put shopping at over 25% of Muse weekly actives. Personal productivity and creativity complete the top three, she said.
The numbers Meta disclosed
The table below lists every Muse figure from the call and who gave it.
| Figure | Value | Who said it |
|---|---|---|
| People who set up Muse | 10M+ in ~6 weeks, US and Canada | Mark Zuckerberg |
| Daily use | ~25% of people who set it up | Mark Zuckerberg |
| Shopping | Over 25% of Muse weekly actives | Susan Li |
| Average purchase | Over $200 | Mark Zuckerberg |
| Serving cost target | 10x+ cheaper within a year | Mark Zuckerberg |
| Weekly actives | Not published | – |
| Total spend through Muse | Not published | – |
The first two rows give a rough daily base of ~2.5M people. That is our arithmetic, not a Meta figure.
How Meta Muse shopping works
Muse is Meta's entry into agentic shopping. The AI agent searches retail sites, shows listings and prepares the checkout for the user. The shopper then confirms the order on an approval card before any payment goes through, CNBC reported on October 3.
Meta named Walmart, Gap, Sephora, Expedia, Wayfair and Best Buy among its retail partners for agentic checkout. Payment runs through Link by Stripe. According to Meta, Link issues a one-time card number, so the shopper's real card details stay hidden.
How Meta plans to make money from Muse
Meta takes a fee on the transactions Muse helps complete, Zuckerberg said. Businesses pay that fee, not shoppers.
People who want the most advanced models or extra tokens pay a subscription. Muse Spark is the default model on the free tier. Muse Wonder, Meta's first frontier model, sits on the paid tier. Li said subscriptions come first among several paths to revenue.
Cost is the other half of the plan. Zuckerberg said Meta expects to make Muse more than 10x cheaper to serve over the next year. He said that would let Muse turn a profit once revenue scales. Muse has not launched globally yet, and the wider rollout waits on that efficiency work. Muse comes to Meta's glasses starting next month.
What Meta did not disclose
The $200 figure is an average, and Meta gave no median. It also did not say how many purchases Muse completed or how much money moved through it.
The fee rate on agent purchases is not public either. Without it, the shopping numbers cannot be turned into revenue.
The mix is unknown too. Expedia is a launch partner, and a trip booking costs more than most single retail items. Meta did not split the average between travel and retail.
The quarter around Muse
The Muse numbers came with Q3 revenue of $64.6B, up 26% year over year. Operating margin fell to 20% from 40%.
Most of that drop is a $9.89B legal charge. It is tied to an August agreement with 52 state attorneys general over teen mental health. Excluding the charge, operating income would have grown 11%, Li said.
Capex was $34.91B in the quarter. Meta now guides $135–145B for 2026, up from a floor of $130B. It expects Q4 revenue of $73–76B.
Sources
- Meta Reports Third Quarter 2026 Results, Meta Investor Relations – Oct 21, 2026
- Q3 2026 earnings webcast and call transcript, Meta Investor Relations – call on Oct 21, 2026
- Meta Q3 2026 results, Form 8-K Exhibit 99.1, SEC – CFO outlook and guidance
- Meta's Muse can shop and check out for you, CNBC – how checkout works, Oct 3, 2026
