Meta's personal AI agent Muse, just a few weeks after launch, has drawn more than 1,500 developer connector applications. Mark Zuckerberg said he wants to grow Muse into "personal superintelligence for billions of people." But the revenue model Meta has in mind isn't a monthly subscription. It's earning fees on purchases the agent makes on your behalf.
Following the features announced at Connect, Muse looks like more than a conversational assistant: it wants to own the front door to shopping and payments. The setup gives consumers a generous amount of free tokens, and asks merchants to connect so the agent can find products and pay for them.
A personal agent you hand your email and calendar to
Meta released Muse in the US on September 8, 2026. Muse is a personal agent that connects to apps like email and calendar, takes on tasks you hand it, and keeps working in the cloud after you close the app. Its underlying model is Muse Spark, a multimodal model designed for agent work.
In his Connect keynote, Zuckerberg explained that Muse will grow into "personal superintelligence" that helps billions of people around the world reach their goals. This announcement can be seen as the step that ties that vision to shopping, payments, and Meta's family of products.
From avatars and glasses to controlling Mac apps
At Connect, a live video conversation using Muse Realtime Avatar was demonstrated. Meta said it will offer the feature "soon" but gave no specific date. The official video below includes the Muse updates and a demo of the new AI glasses.
For AI glasses, Meta announced that Muse will be available within the next few months. It showed use cases such as calling up the glasses to get workout guidance, log meals, or hand off a reservation, and asking about and buying objects in front of you. However, at the time of the Connect announcement, Muse for glasses was not yet available.
By contrast, app control in Muse for Mac was presented as a feature that already exists. With the user's permission, it operates Mac apps directly and carries out the tasks you hand it in the background. A dedicated Muse email address is in development, and the release timing was given as "soon."
You can also watch the official Muse Realtime Avatar demo posted by AI at Meta.
The core of shopping is product search plus payment links
Muse can search Shopify's entire catalog and is connected to pay through Shop Pay and Stripe's Link. Meta announced it is adding PayPal as a payment method too. Partners include Walmart, Best Buy, Gap, Sephora, and Wayfair, and Expedia for trip planning and the grocery service Instacart were also introduced.
These connections don't stop at the agent recommending products. The aim is to complete the whole flow, from finding what the user wants to paying for it, inside Muse. Instead of opening each store's app and searching, users can tell the agent their criteria and hand off the purchase.
Transaction fees instead of subscription fees
Zuckerberg described Muse's revenue model this way.
"We're standing behind this by making Muse free for a huge number of tokens, with the expectation that over time we will profit by taking a small fee from transactions."
In other words, Meta gives a large number of tokens for free and expects to profit over time by taking a small fee on transactions.
The idea is to earn from the purchase flow the agent creates rather than charging for usage directly. Meta, which has built its core business on advertising, now wants to step into the path of product discovery and payment as well. The bigger the transactions that happen in Muse, the more commerce revenue Meta can earn without billing users a subscription.
Stores have to connect to the agent to sell
In this structure, a merchant has to supply product information to the agent and connect payment to be considered as a purchase candidate. If consumers say "find a product that meets my criteria and order it" instead of searching themselves, an agent-readable product catalog and a transaction connection become the entry point to a new distribution channel.
Businesses and developers can apply by clicking Submit a connector on the Muse Connector Platform. After you submit a description of your product and the connector's role, Meta reviews its functionality, security, and legal requirements and runs end-to-end tests. Approved connectors are listed in the Muse directory. Muse lead Alexandr Wang said at Connect that applications passed 1,500 before the first week of intake was even over.
Online stores also need to organize their product information so agents can understand it and prepare an environment where search and payment connect. If you want to look at how to build and run an online store, see Huuush's online store building guide.
Muse is not available in South Korea yet
Muse started rolling out in the US at launch, and South Korea is not currently listed as a supported region. Meta announced it is adding South Korea to the markets where it sells AI glasses, but selling the glasses and offering Muse on the glasses are separate things. Using Muse on glasses was presented at Connect as a feature coming later.
If an agent finds products for free, carries through to payment, and Meta takes a fee on those transactions, the question that matters to merchants changes. Beyond "how will we show up in search results?" there is now "can an AI agent read our products and complete the purchase?" as part of distribution strategy.