Meta’s Muse is adorable agent of value destruction
META•Meta’s Muse AI agent topped 5 million downloads, while Meta gained about $450 billion in value over the past month and shares in several subscription, travel and financial companies fell. The S&P 500 was roughly unchanged.
1. Market reaction
Muse, released by Meta in early September, passed 5 million downloads. Over the past month, the S&P 500 was roughly unchanged, while Meta gained about $450 billion in value. Gains by Meta and chipmakers Nvidia, Intel and AMD exceeded $1 trillion, while other sectors shed a similar amount, the column said.
2. Companies under pressure
Investors have feared that AI agents could disrupt businesses dependent on subscriptions, intermediaries and consumers’ willingness to do tasks themselves. Booking and Expedia shares lost close to a fifth of their value in a month; Netflix, Spotify and Planet Fitness fell 18%, 12% and 20%, respectively. H&R Block, Intuit, AutoNation and CarMax also fell nearly 20%, while Capital One and Bank of America lost more than 10%.
3. Potential beneficiaries
The column said the panic might be short-lived, noting that leading machine-learning products can face improved or cheaper rival offerings and that concerns about heavy investment could erase Meta’s gains. It added that businesses may use AI to improve margins, while chipmakers could benefit if companies and consumers rely on agents to negotiate against each other.
