Meta's Muse hits 10 million US downloads in 40 days, outpaces AI rivals on retention

According to a new Sensor Tower report, Meta's Muse is only the 12th app to reach 10 million US downloads within 40 days of launch. This puts it in a small group of successful apps. Nine of the 11 apps that reached this goal before it were mobile games. The most recent was Meta's own Threads app, which reached the milestone in July 2023.

Muse gained downloads much faster than other AI assistants. In their first 40 days, ChatGPT had 3.7 million downloads in the United States, Grok had 500,000, and Claude had 200,000. During the same period, ChatGPT reached about 15 million downloads worldwide. The United States accounted for 25% of that total. Japan came next with 9%, followed by Brazil with 6% and Germany with 5%.

Muse also did better at keeping users coming back. In the United States, 30% of its users returned after seven days, and 23% returned after 14 days. For ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok, the average was 19% after seven days and 16% after 14 days. Meta has long been good at keeping people using its apps. These numbers suggest that its large social network may also help its AI products keep users.

Muse's growth comes as people raise new questions about its privacy. Security researchers recently found that the app's conversation-sharing feature could reveal sensitive personal and business information. Meta has paused the feature while it investigates the problem. So far, the controversy has not slowed the app's growth. Sensor Tower reports that Muse received 39% of Meta's US advertising spending this month, up from 23% in September. The app also rose from 73rd to 21st place among US brands ranked by advertising impressions.

ChatGPT's downloads in the United States fell by 25% over the past 30 days compared with the previous 30-day period. Even so, it remains the fourth most-downloaded free app on the US App Store. Claude ranks seventh, and Grok ranks 34th.

Meta's advertising strategy and its large existing user base give Muse an advantage that companies focused only on AI do not have. It remains to be seen whether users will keep coming back when Meta reduces its advertising push. That will help determine whether Muse becomes a lasting success or only tops the charts for a short time.