PremiumPeak Muse? Growth Slows Just As Morgan Stanley Tallies What Meta's "Free" Agent Really Costs
For most of the past three years, the knock on Meta's AI strategy came down to one line: lots of capex, no product. Then just over a month ago, on September 8, Meta launched Muse, an agent that opens a browser, fills out forms, books the trip and (if you let it) cancels your gym membership and even reallocates your savings. Meta stock jumped 27% in 12 sessions to a $777.59 peak, the forward multiple went from 14x in late August to 21x, and the sell-side moved on from fretting about capex to arguing over which trillion-dollar TAM to stack on top of it.
It didn't take long, however, for the first serious crack to show up. On Friday, Hunterbrook Media citing alternative-data firm TickerTrends, reported that Muse downloads fell 8.1% week over week and that daily net user additions have slowed 62.4% from the September surge. There is, of course, a conflict of interest - Hunterbrook's affiliated fund disclosed it is short META - but that doesn't mean the data is wrong. We flagged it over the weekend with a three-word summary: