Meta’s AI assistant, Muse, has secured a spot among the elite mobile applications by accumulating 10.9 million U.S. downloads within its first 40 days of availability. According to data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, 10.2 million of these downloads originated from the United States alone.
Only 11 other applications have previously achieved this level of post-launch success, notes Kara Lee, Senior Insights Analyst at Sensor Tower. The most recent app to do so was Meta’s Threads in July 2023, with Lee adding that such rapid scaling is typically seen in mobile games rather than general apps.
This success is largely attributed to Meta's strategy of leveraging its vast ecosystem to scale new releases. Threads utilized Instagram's social graph, and Muse benefits similarly from integration across the family of apps, which services 3.6 billion daily active users. Additionally, Meta is aggressively investing in advertising to drive user acquisition, dedicating 39% of its ad spend to Muse in October, an increase from 23% the previous month.
As a result of this marketing push, Muse has climbed the advertising ladder, ranking as the 21st most advertised brand in the U.S. this month, compared to 73rd in September.
However, sustaining user interest remains a challenge. Despite the initial hype, Muse currently boasts superior retention rates compared to its primary competitors, ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok.
The app maintains a 30% retention rate after one week and a 23% rate after two weeks. In contrast, the rivals averaged 19% and 16% retention during the same periods, respectively.
Muse also demonstrated strong engagement, hitting 2.5 million daily active users for the first time on October 16, a significant 15% increase week-over-week.
The app achieved a breakout performance, securing the top spot on the App Store and briefly outperforming metrics seen with ChatGPT's launch. Muse has already surpassed ChatGPT's 40-day U.S. download count of 3.7 million, while Grok and Claude managed only 500,000 and 200,000, respectively.
While ChatGPT holds a global lead with approximately 15 million downloads in the same timeframe, this is largely due to its broader availability. Muse is currently limited to the U.S. and Canada, whereas ChatGPT attracted significant user bases in Japan, Brazil, and Germany (Japan accounted for 25% of its global installs).
Muse has remained the top-ranked app on the U.S. App Store for all days except one, when it was briefly surpassed by the streaming app Kick before reclaiming the position this week. Furthermore, it has held the number one rank on Google Play for the past 30 days.
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