The following summarises a Bloomberg Opinion column by US technology columnist Dave Lee. It reflects the author personal views rather than reporting.
- Mark Zuckerberg announced Muse Charm on Wednesday evening, a pendant described as Tamagotchi-like for interacting with Meta new personal AI agent away from a phone, due in time for Christmas. Users customise the character appearance, outfits and voice, and two devices placed near each other can recognise and interact.
- Advertising currently accounts for 98% of Meta revenue. Zuckerberg told developers the company will over time profit by taking a small fee from transactions made through Muse, with a slide behind him reading that Muse makes you money. Meta shares were quoted at 764.50, up 2.74%.
- Trust is the stated obstacle. The most recent Harris Poll 100 ranks Meta reputation among US adults at 96th, against Anthropic at 16th, Apple at 20th and Alphabet at 22nd, and a Gallup poll in June found consumer trust in large technology companies low and declining.
- Scale still favours Meta, with 3.6 billion people using one of its apps every day. Lee argues Muse is to AI agents what the iPod was to MP3 players, a stylish recasting of existing technology that reaches people beyond early adopters.
What Happened?
Alexandr Wang, who leads Meta artificial intelligence work, told the company developer conference that running a personal agent on your own computer marked someone as unusually committed to AI only six months ago. Lee credits the tone of the product, contrasting Meta playful pitch with the emphasis on job losses and existential risk coming from other AI companies, and citing author Joanna Maciejewska line about wanting AI to handle laundry and dishes rather than art and writing. He also notes the head start will be short, with OpenAI engineers working on an answer and Apple Siri AI now reaching the iPhone.
Why It Matters?
The column names two facts and does not quite connect them. Meta plans to earn a fee on transactions conducted through an agent that requires deep access to a user accounts, messages and payments, and Meta ranks 96th on reputation among US adults, 80 places below Anthropic and 76 below Apple. The monetisation path therefore depends on precisely the permissions the company is least trusted to be granted. That is the central risk in the thesis, and it is measurable rather than speculative. The iPod comparison also flatters the position more than it should. What made iTunes and later the App Store lucrative was that Apple controlled the hardware, the operating system and the store, so it could set and collect the cut. Meta controls none of those layers. Muse runs on iPhones and Android devices, which means Apple and Alphabet sit between Meta and its users and can tax, restrict or replicate the experience, and Siri arriving on the iPhone is exactly that risk materialising. A pendant is an attempt to escape that dependency, but a Christmas accessory is not a platform. For investors the opportunity is real and worth sizing honestly: any diversification away from a 98% advertising concentration would be the most significant change to Meta business in its 22-year history. It would also put Meta in direct conflict with the merchants, booking sites and financial firms whose margins a transaction fee would come out of, which is the same repricing that hit those sectors this week.
What Next?
The Muse Charm ships before Christmas, so holiday sales are the first hard data on whether consumer enthusiasm extends beyond a free app download to paid hardware. Watch Meta next earnings for any disclosure of Muse-related revenue or a change in segment reporting, since the advertising share of revenue is the single metric that tests this thesis. Apple Siri rollout and whatever OpenAI produces in response are the competitive markers, and Lee expects the head start to be brief. The permissions question is measurable too: what proportion of users grant Muse access to email, calendar and payments will determine whether the transaction-fee model has a base. Also watch for any move by Apple or Alphabet to restrict agent access on their platforms, which is the clearest way Meta thesis could be constrained by parties it does not control.
Affected Tickers and Coins: META, AAPL, GOOGL
Source: Bloomberg Opinion
