Meta‘s new agentic AI app, Muse, has reached the No. 2 spot on the U.S. iOS App Store, but early download data from Sensor Tower shows its debut is far smaller than Meta‘s previous app launches. Muse has been downloaded more than 83,000 times on iOS in the U.S., where it is currently limited. That was enough to climb from No. 4 on Wednesday to No. 2 by Friday, but it trails Threads, which saw over 4.3 million U.S. downloads on launch day, and Meta‘s own AI app, which had 108,000 U.S. downloads at debut. ChatGPT, by comparison, passed half a million U.S. installs in under a week, averaging roughly 83,300 daily downloads at launch — a number Muse took twice as long to reach. The article notes this does not necessarily mean the launch is going poorly, just that it is taking off at a slower pace.

The Android version of Muse is faring worse, ranking No. 338 in the Productivity category on Google Play, with Android download numbers not yet available. The estimates also exclude usage through the web and WhatsApp, where Muse is also available. The article frames Muse as one of Meta‘s bigger bets, reflecting the company’s belief that agents that act on people’s behalf will define consumer AI. It compares the move to Meta‘s earlier rebrand from Facebook to chase the metaverse.

Meta faces competition in consumer agentic AI from Google’s Gemini Spark, Anthropic’s Claude Cowork, and especially Instinct, a text-message-based AI agent recently valued at $2.5 billion. Despite privacy concerns and a broad privacy policy, Instinct has drawn praise from Silicon Valley insiders. It has $350 million at its disposal and has been shipping features quickly: email addresses for all users, agent-to-agent communication for coordinating plans, integrations with Stripe and 1Password, and location sharing. The article suggests Instinct‘s emerging social graph, built from real-life contacts, could be more valuable than Meta‘s friend graph, which mixes real acquaintances with followed accounts.

Muse‘s launch timing may also be a factor. The app requires users to share more personal information and arrived days after Meta agreed to an $18 billion multistate settlement over social media harms. Meta has also faced data scandals and repeated FTC fines over privacy violations.