- Mizuho reiterated Outperform and a $750 price target on Meta, citing Muse's rise to the number one free app in the app store with 730,000 downloads in its first five days and 2.5 million cumulative downloads by September 21.
- Mizuho analyst Lloyd Walmsley expects Meta Connect on September 23-24 to shift the Muse narrative "from app adoption to platform creation," with smart-glasses integration as the headline announcement.
- Meta opened its Connector Platform to third-party developers on September 18, with Shopify and Stripe already enabling checkout, setting up transaction-based revenue via a potential take rate.
- Amazon blocked the Muse AI agent, which Mizuho interprets as validation of Muse's growing scale and Meta's ambition to capture value created across search, online travel, and e-commerce advertising.
- Citi analyst Ronald Josey maintained a Buy rating and an $800 price target on Meta ahead of Connect, pointing to accelerating product cadence and early Muse adoption as support for returns on Meta's AI investments.
- Meta launched Muse this month, an autonomous personal AI assistant powered by the Muse Spark 1.3 foundation model from Meta Superintelligence Labs, with free and paid subscription tiers at $20 or $100 per month.
- Panelists flagged Meta's $130B-$145B AI capex guidance as a risk, requiring positive ROIC above the cost of capital within 2-3 years, alongside EU regulatory obstacles to its AI plans.
Quotes
“from app adoption to platform creation”
“clearest consumer AI use case yet”
“feels very approachable and friendly and explainable, and it doesn't feel too complicated”