Meta’s personal AI agent, Muse, has been downloaded more than 10 million times in its first 35 days on sale — a sprint that beat ChatGPT, Claude and Grok to the milestone, according to new Sensor Tower data reported on 20 October 2026. But downloads are only half the story: retention, active users and a just-paused sharing feature tell you far more about whether Muse is worth your time. This guide walks through what the numbers mean, how to set Muse up, and the safety checks worth running before you hand it your calendar.
What just happened: 10 million downloads in 35 days
Sensor Tower says Muse crossed 10 million downloads in the US and Canada during its first 35 days — a milestone ChatGPT, Claude and Grok each needed more than 100 days to reach.
The figures come from a Sensor Tower post on LinkedIn dated Monday, 19 October 2026, reported by PYMNTS the following day. Sensor Tower’s vice president of insights, Seema M. Shah, told Bloomberg in a video accompanying the post that the pace of adoption has been striking — and added one important piece of context: ChatGPT, Claude and Grok all launched globally, while Muse has only been available in the US and Canada. The comparison flatters Muse on speed, but it is not quite like-for-like.
A few more markers from the same data:
- Muse hit the No. 1 spot on Apple’s App Store just 10 days after its 8 September launch, passing ChatGPT.
- Its 14-day retention rate in the US was 23%, higher than the 17% Claude managed at its launch.
- Muse has roughly 2 million active users in the US — against about 55 million for ChatGPT, per Sensor Tower.
“There’s been a huge interest in Muse and these personal agents versus the direct chatbots.” — Seema M. Shah, Sensor Tower vice president of insights, via PYMNTS, 20 October 2026
The numbers arrive on the eve of Meta’s third-quarter results, due after the market close on 21 October, with analysts watching closely for evidence that the spending on Muse is turning into revenue. Our Muse availability guide tracks exactly where the app is live today, and it is still a short list: the US since 8 September and Canada since 18 September, with Mexico unconfirmed.
What the numbers actually mean (and what they don’t)
Download velocity measures curiosity; retention and active use measure whether the product sticks — and Muse’s numbers split sharply between the two.
| Metric | Muse | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| Downloads | 10M+ in 35 days | Record-breaking curiosity — faster than ChatGPT, Claude, Grok |
| 14-day retention | 23% (US) | Better than Claude’s 17% at launch — early sign of stickiness |
| Active users | ~2M (US) | Dwarfed by ChatGPT’s ~55M — the gap is the real mountain |
| Availability | US + Canada only | Two countries, yet it still beat global launches on download speed |
Shah herself flagged the honest reading: “It’s still pretty early to say” when it comes to engagement. A download is free and takes seconds; the retention figure — people still opening the app two weeks later — is the number that suggests Muse is becoming a habit rather than a trial. And the 2 million active users shows how far there is to go: curiosity converted at a rate ChatGPT would envy, but the installed base is still a fraction of the incumbent’s.
One more caveat before the hype sets in: this is a single third-party dataset (Sensor Tower estimates), not Meta’s own reported figures. Treat the direction as solid and the exact numbers as approximate.
How to get Muse on your phone or laptop
Muse is available as a standalone app on iOS and Android, on the web at muse.ai, and — without any app at all — inside WhatsApp.
The setup is straightforward, but three things are worth knowing first:
- Check availability. As of this week, Muse is live in the US and Canada only. If you are elsewhere, you are waiting on Meta’s rollout — our availability guide covers the country-by-country picture.
- Confirm you are 18 or older. Meta has restricted Muse to adults (18+), unlike most general chatbots.
- Pick your surface. Download the Muse app from your app store, open muse.ai in a browser, or simply message Muse inside WhatsApp — our WhatsApp setup guide covers the no-app route.
Muse is free for most uses, with subscription plans available, per Meta’s own rollout materials. The company also sells the experience up: a small-business version and new Muse Wonder models that Meta says will soon power the agent, starting with subscribers.
What Muse can actually do for you
Muse is built as an agent that acts on your behalf, not just a chatbot that answers — and it asks your approval before sending emails or making purchases.
According to Meta’s rollout materials (summarised by The Decoder via shattered.io), the agent can send emails, book travel, fill out forms and negotiate on your behalf. You choose which connected apps Muse can touch — spanning email, calendar, payments, health, shopping and smart-home categories — and you can revoke access at any time.
Three capabilities added at Meta Connect layer on top of that base:
- Real-time video chat with a customisable avatar, powered by a model Meta calls Muse Realtime Avatar.
- A dedicated email address for the agent itself — cc Muse on a thread or forward a message and it acts on it directly.
- Expanded computer-use on Mac, letting Muse operate applications on your own machine rather than staying inside its API-level connections.
Practical tip for week one: connect one low-stakes app first (a calendar, not your inbox), try a bounded task like “find me a flight window next month and report back before booking,” and watch how the approval step works before widening its access. Power users can also bolt on capabilities with our free Muse skills packs.
The paused share feature: what happened and why it matters
Meta has paused Muse’s share-a-conversation feature after researchers showed thousands of shared chats were publicly discoverable through DNS records.
Researchers at the security firm Claroc found more than 6,800 Muse share links through public DNS records, as reported by Ars Technica this week. The design flaw was simple: Muse built each share link’s address from the share’s title, a short phrase describing the conversation, and a random ID — and the hostname alone often revealed what a page held. Searching public DNS records, Claroc could view hundreds of conversations, including a marketing company’s revenue review, a small business owner’s loan application, a workplace’s full-year staff calendar, and notes for a job candidate’s call with an AI lab.
Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton told The Verge the company has “paused this functionality while we review this report and consider changes to how these links can be discovered.” This is not the first time AI chat-sharing has sprung a leak — conversations with ChatGPT, Claude and Grok have previously surfaced on Google Search through the same class of feature.
What to do about it, practically:
- Don’t share conversations containing anything you wouldn’t post publicly — assume any link you generated before the pause is discoverable.
- Audit what’s connected. The same instinct that made you share a chat should apply to permissions: our Muse privacy dossiers explainer walks through what Muse remembers about you and the people you mention.
- Watch for the feature’s return — and when it comes back, check whether Meta changed the link design before trusting it again.
Our take: curiosity is converted, habit is the test
The download record is genuinely impressive, but the number that decides Muse’s future is the 23% retention figure — and whether Meta can hold it while fixing privacy missteps like the share-links flaw.
Ten million downloads in 35 days, from two countries, against rivals that needed over 100 days each: that is not a rounding error. It says the “personal agent that does things” pitch is landing with people who never quite bonded with the chatbot era. But 2 million active users against ChatGPT’s 55 million shows the ceiling is still far away, and the paused sharing feature is a reminder that agentic AI collects more sensitive context than a chat window ever did — so its privacy engineering has to be correspondingly better. Watch tonight’s Meta earnings call for the first official numbers; until then, Sensor Tower’s estimates are the best public read we have.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Muse AI available in my country?
As of 21 October 2026, Muse is available in the US (since 8 September) and Canada (since 18 September) only. Mexico and all other countries are unconfirmed — see our Muse availability guide for the rolling country-by-country list.
Is Muse free to use?
Yes, for most uses, per Meta’s own rollout materials — subscription plans also exist, and Meta is building paid tiers around new Muse Wonder models for subscribers first.
Could people find my shared Muse chats?
Possibly, yes — researchers found over 6,800 shared Muse links discoverable through public DNS records, and Meta has paused the sharing feature while it reviews the report. Treat any link you shared before the pause as public.
Does Muse replace ChatGPT?
Not directly — they are designed differently. Muse is an agent built to act on your behalf (emails, bookings, forms, with approvals), while ChatGPT is primarily a conversational assistant. Sensor Tower puts Muse at ~2 million US active users versus ~55 million for ChatGPT, so the installed base is still far smaller.
Sources and methodology
This guide is built from: Sensor Tower’s 19 October 2026 LinkedIn post reporting 10M+ US/Canada downloads in 35 days, 23% 14-day retention and ~2M US active users, as reported by PYMNTS (20 October 2026, quoting Sensor Tower VP Seema M. Shah’s Bloomberg video); Claroc’s DNS-record research into 6,800+ discoverable Muse share links and Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton’s pause confirmation, via NewsLink360 reporting on Ars Technica’s coverage; Muse’s verified capabilities and Connect additions, via shattered.io summarising The Decoder and Meta’s rollout materials; and Meta’s Q3 2026 earnings timing (after market close 21 October), via Morningstar / PR Newswire. Download and engagement figures are third-party estimates, not Meta disclosures; claims were assembled from published reporting on 21 October 2026, with single-source figures flagged inline. We have not hands-on tested the Muse app ourselves.
Arva Rangwala covers AI news, AI tools, guides and prompts for OpenAIMaster — what is new, what is worth using, and how to put AI to work.