Dear Investors.
Zee here. Meta’s stock had its best month in almost four years in September 2026, and the main reason is a new AI product called Muse.
Meta paid $14.3 billion for half of a data labelling startup, hired its founder, and nine months later shipped Muse, the model that replaced Llama.
The shares have cooled a little since, and investors are now waiting for the next earnings report to see whether the excitement turns into real money.
What is Muse?
Muse is Meta’s newest big product. Most chatbots only answer questions, but Muse is a personal AI agent that does things for you. Meta says it can send an email, book travel, open a browser, fill out forms, negotiate on a person’s behalf and complete a checkout, and that it keeps working after the app is closed. It runs in the background, even while you sleep.
Muse launched on September 8. It can be used through its own app or directly inside WhatsApp. It is rolling out in the United States only, on iOS, Android and the web.
It’s free to start, and paid tiers run $20 and $100 a month for heavier users. Meta has said that user information won’t be incorporated into its advertising infrastructure, so the money is meant to come from subscriptions and transaction fees rather than ads.
How Muse is built, and why that matters
An AI agent that can spend your money has to be safe. Meta’s approach assumes the AI itself can be tricked, so it built a fence around it:
Muse works inside a sealed cloud computer (the “Muse Secure VM”). A separate Sentinel agent monitors what Muse does and controls what can reach the internet.
Your passwords and card details are kept outside the AI’s reach. Meta says Muse “has no visibility into people’s passwords or payment methods,” and asks before it buys.
Later this year, Meta plans a Confidential VM, encrypting the entire virtual machine with a key controlled only by the user.
Muse also has three ways to complete a task:
Built-in connectors to apps like Gmail or Shopify. These are fast and reliable.
Self-built connectors, where a service offers a public API (a way for programs to talk to each other).
Browsing like a person, clicking through a website. This is slower, but it works almost anywhere.
Why did the share price rise?
1. Muse was a hit
Within days of release, Muse surpassed OpenAI’s ChatGPT in download rankings on Apple’s iOS platform. One analyst, Evercore’s Mark Mahaney, projects Muse could reach 100 million users within six to 12 months.
2. Eased the biggest worry about Meta
Meta is spending enormous sums on AI, with 2026 spending guided to $130 billion to $145 billion. Investors kept asking what they would get in return. Muse gave them something concrete to point to. The successful launch has eased investor concerns over whether Meta can generate returns from its multibillion-dollar spending on artificial intelligence.
3. A string of follow-up news
Meta struck partnerships with Instacart owner Maplebear and travel platform Expedia, and unveiled the compact Muse Charm device.
At its Connect conference, Zuckerberg called Muse a “centerpiece” of the company’s strategy. Meta also showed “Muse for Small Business” agent technology, moving to expand its consumer hit into the enterprise market.
The bottom line
Meta’s rally is a bet that its huge AI spending will pay off, and Muse is the first real evidence. The risks are heavy spending, thin cash flow, legal costs, pushback from retailers like Amazon and high expectations. Earnings on October 28 are the next big test.
Disclaimer:
All information here is for educational purposes only. This is not financial advice. Please do your own research and speak with a licensed advisor before making any investment decisions. Past performance is not indicative of future returns. How we invest may not suit your investment goals and risk management profile.