Meta's personal AI assistant Muse has been downloaded 10.9 million times in its first 40 days on the market, with 10.2 million of those downloads coming from the United States. TechCrunch reported the figures on October 20, citing new data from market analytics firm Sensor Tower. The result makes Muse one of only 12 mobile apps in history to cross the 10-million-download mark in the US within 40 days.
The 12th App in History
Launched in September, Muse quickly climbed to the top of the US App Store rankings and has held the lead nearly every day since. According to TechCrunch, the app surpassed some of ChatGPT's post-launch metrics within days of its debut. Only on October 19 did streaming app Kick briefly overtake it, but Muse reclaimed the top spot on Tuesday. On Google Play, the app has held first place in the US for the past 30 days.
"Only 11 apps had ever reached this milestone. Most of them were mobile games," Sensor Tower senior analyst Kara Lee told TechCrunch.
The most recent app to reach this level before Muse was Meta's Threads social network, launched in July 2023. Its predecessors were mostly mobile games with large audiences.
The Threads Precedent
Threads' rapid growth was also tied to Meta's strategy of leveraging its own ecosystem: it was built on Instagram's social graph, signup was tied to an Instagram account, and its content was later integrated into the Facebook and Instagram feeds. Meta is now applying the same playbook to Muse — the AI assistant is being promoted across the company's family of apps with 3.6 billion daily active users. The company has also sharply increased its direct advertising spending to push the app to the top of the App Store and Google Play.
Far Ahead of Rivals
For comparison: ChatGPT was downloaded 3.7 million times in the US in its first 40 days, while Grok reached 500,000 and Claude 200,000. Globally, ChatGPT reached 15 million downloads in 40 days, but that comparison is not entirely fair — ChatGPT launched worldwide, while Muse is currently available only in the US and Canada. For example, Japan accounted for 25% of ChatGPT's global downloads in its first 40 days.
Muse is ahead of its rivals not just in downloads but in user retention as well. According to Sensor Tower, the app's 7-day retention rate in the US was 30% and its 14-day rate was 23%. The average figures for ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok were 19% and 16% respectively. Sensor Tower's comparison included the main rival AI assistants — ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok. On October 16, Muse reached 2.5 million daily active users for the first time — a 15% increase from the previous week.
Record Ad Spending
Meta's success is tied to its ability to promote new apps at scale through its own services — TechCrunch notes this with Threads and Muse as examples. Threads was built on Instagram's social graph and its content was integrated into Facebook and Instagram. Muse is being promoted through Meta's family of apps with 3.6 billion daily active users — on top of that, the company is spending heavily on traditional advertising.
According to Sensor Tower, Meta directed 39% of its total US advertising spend to promoting Muse in October, up from 23% in September. As a result, Muse became the 21st largest brand in the US by ad impressions, up from 73rd place in September.
Investors Now Watch the Quarterly Report
Reuters reports that Muse's popularity and Meta's AI spending will be in the spotlight for investors when the company reports its third-quarter results on Wednesday, October 21. Investors want to see returns on the hundreds of billions of dollars invested in AI infrastructure — Muse's early numbers are being treated as one of the first answers to that question.
For reference: Muse is currently available only in the US and Canada. Yet within a month, the app managed to break into the top twenty most-advertised brands in the US — a result achieved through Meta's record advertising investment, according to Sensor Tower.
