Muse by Meta took the number one position on the U.S. iOS App Store on September 18, 2026, ten days after its launch on September 8, overtaking the number one position that had been occupied by OpenAI's ChatGPT for several years.
According to data from analytics firm Sensor Tower, Muse gained 730,000 downloads during its first five days after being released on the market, a speed sufficient to surpass not only ChatGPT but also other AI apps, including Claude from Anthropic.
Grok from xAI, as well as Meta's own existing Meta AI. By September 21, the app had gained 2.5 million downloads, 1.5 million downloads via iOS, and 1.1 million via Android.
The numbers when compared to its competitors over the same period after launch were impressive. The download count for ChatGPT stood at 3.1 million over thirteen days, still outpacing the app in terms of total number of downloads, but Muse had beaten ChatGPT in terms of speed in the first week of launch compared to Claude's 400,000 and Grok's 200,000.
In contrast to chatbots made specifically to answer questions, Muse is constructed to be an independent “personal AI agent” that can perform real-life actions based on a user’s instructions. Using Meta’s special Muse Spark model, the application can independently send emails and make travel arrangements.
Fill out online forms, and perform a variety of complex tasks ranging from calendar management to payments, healthcare, online shopping, and smart home device operation. As explained by Meta, this technology offers a completely new experience where a user just states what he wants to achieve.
and then Muse formulates a plan, opens browsers, negotiates on a user’s behalf, and works on a task continuously until it completes, checking in with a user only once when something happens or when it requires explicit permission to do something, like sending an email or making a purchase.
The program is partially based on an open-source agent framework called OpenClaw and provided for free with limitations and subscriptions that cost $20 and $100 per month, respectively. This way, Meta is looking for an additional source of income other than its primary advertising business.
The sudden popularity of Muse has not been without its problems at an early stage. The company has already attracted some criticism from at least one major player since Amazon allegedly limited Muse's capability to use its web resources, concerned about the presence of unauthorized agents on its website.
The problem reflects a general trend likely to increase in the future when agentic AI will try to navigate through websites not initially designed to accommodate AI agents.
The experts in the field also emphasized that simply downloading the application does not mean that it will become popular.
Sensor Tower analyst Seema Shah pointed out that even though some new competitors are growing fast, such as Muse, in terms of user engagement and retention rates, ChatGPT continues to lead. At the moment, the AI chatbot managed to achieve 1 billion weekly active users all over the world.
The success of Muse has once again put competition pressure on OpenAI, which has not yet rolled out a product directly competing with Meta's agentic assistant.
There is an anticipation that the company will soon react through the annual DevDay conference, where CEO Sam Altman has made hints of announcing a significant product through the social media platform.
The indication is that OpenAI is aware of the new competitive dynamics and plans to expand agentic abilities in defense of ChatGPT's superiority in consumer AI applications.
Apart from Muse's mobile application, the AI ambition of Meta has extended further since the company added the application on Mac desktops just days after its initial release despite the application not ranking on App Store charts.
