Meta's Muse shopping agent is a hit, as AI commerce starts to take off

Shoppers have seen the future, and many of them have decided it looks like Muse.

Meta's new personal artificial intelligence agent now sits atop Apple's App Store, ahead of No. 2 ChatGPT, as more consumers put their faith in AI to save them time and money — existential AI fears be damned. 

Neil Saunders, managing director and retail analyst at GlobalData Retail, said the buzz around Muse underscores the "acceleration of agentic shopping." He expects more people to gravitate to AI shopping agents like Muse as they look to hand off cumbersome tasks, such as comparing deals across sites and tracking down products.

"I wouldn't say it's a tipping point, but it's certainly an important part of the journey for AI and consumers," Saunders told CBS News.

According to IBM, 41% of consumers use AI assistants to research products, and 31% use them to search for deals.

Since Meta unveiled Muse two weeks ago, the app has amassed more than 2.5 million downloads, according to Sensor Tower data shared with CBS News. By comparison, OpenAI's ChatGPT AI app had 3.1 million global downloads over the same time period, while Anthropopi's Claude tool had 200,000, the market research company found.

In another sign of Muse's growing relevance, Amazon confirmed to CBS News that it has blocked the AI app from shopping on its e-commerce platform, citing security and user experience concerns.

The evolution of search

Until recently, people have mostly used AI as a "glorified search engine," he added. By contrast, Meta is marketing Muse as a tool that will help consumers with everyday tasks and otherwise make their lives easier.

"If [Muse] maintains momentum, it could maybe leapfrog Claude among consumers and get into the top tier" of AI tools, said John Mercer, head of global research at Coresight.

Unlike traditional chatbots, Muse can take action on behalf of users, handling tasks like booking a flight, decluttering people's inboxes and tracking price drops. When it comes to shopping, the benefit for customers isn't just saving time; it's also about helping them find deals, Mercer said. 

"It's a natural evolution from search," Mercer said.

In a recent Coresight survey of more than 1,000 consumers, 30% of respondents said they would use an AI tool to compare prices for holiday shopping. The same percentage said they would also use the tools to find deals or promo codes on holiday gifts. 

"What agentic commerce does is basically summarizes, discovers, showcases what it thinks is interesting to each individual, and that does cut out some of the work so you don't have to go to multiple sites and cross-compare," Saunders said.

Although Muse is already making a splash, Saunders thinks broader consumer adoption of AI shopping agents will take time. Cases of agentic AI mishaps have already emerged, shaking people's trust in the tools.

"People are still a little bit nervous about allowing AI agents to do the purchasing on their behalf," he said.