Meta’s AI companion Muse has become one of only a dozen apps to pass 10 million U.S. downloads within 40 days of launch, according to market intelligence provider Sensor Tower. The app recorded 10.9 million downloads since its September debut, 10.2 million of them in the U.S. Only 11 other apps have hit that post-launch milestone; the most recent was Meta’s Threads in July 2023, and besides Threads, Disney+ was the only other non-game app in the group. The rest were mobile games such as Fortnite, PUBG Mobile, and Pokémon GO.

Meta’s cross-app distribution is a key driver: the company promotes new apps across its family of services, which today has 3.6 billion daily active users. Threads was built on Instagram’s social graph and integrated into Facebook and Instagram, and Muse is getting the same scaling treatment. Meta is also buying traffic: Sensor Tower estimates Meta allocated 39% of its total ad spend to Muse in October, up from 23% in September, and Muse rose from the 73rd to the 21st largest U.S. brand by ad impressions this month.

Early retention looks better than rivals. Muse’s U.S. retention was 30% after seven days and 23% after fourteen days, versus averages of 19% and 16% for ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok. Daily active users hit 2.5 million on October 16, up 15% week over week.

Muse’s U.S. download volume also tops its AI rivals: ChatGPT saw 3.7 million U.S. downloads in its first 40 days, while Grok saw 500,000 and Claude 200,000. Globally, ChatGPT’s roughly 15 million installs in the same window exceeded Muse, but the comparison is skewed because Muse is only available in the U.S. and Canada, whereas ChatGPT drew heavily from markets including Japan, Brazil, and Germany—Japan alone was 25% of ChatGPT’s first-40-day installs.

Since launch, Muse has held the No. 1 rank on the U.S. App Store except for October 19, when Kick briefly took the top spot, and it has been No. 1 on Google Play over the past 30 days. TechCrunch notes that marketing an app and retaining users after the initial shine wears off are different things, but the reported numbers so far show stronger engagement than its AI competitors.