Muse appears to offer Meta ways to meaningfully diversify its revenue sources beyond advertising.
The company's core business remains strong, and the stock is attractively valued.
Meta Platforms' (NASDAQ: META) stock has emerged from its slumber, but I think the best days are still ahead of it as its AI infrastructure spending begins to pay off with new revenue streams. The stock has spent much of the past year down from its summer 2025 highs, but recently climbed back to breakeven year-over-year thanks to a strong rebound since mid-August, when it traded below $550.
The stock really broke out following the debut of its Muse AI agents. Over the past couple of years, Meta has invested heavily in AI, both through significant infrastructure capital expenditures and by poaching top AI talent from other companies, promising to become a leader in what it calls "personal superintelligence." However, given how Meta spent tens of billions of dollars on its metaverse ambitions and came away with essentially nothing to show for it, investors have been skeptical about the social media company's increasing AI-related capex.
Missed Nvidia in 2009? This Rare Signal Is Flashing Again. In 2009, a "Double Down" signal flashed for a little-known chipmaker called Nvidia. For the first time in years, that same "Total Conviction" signal is flashing for a company 1/100th the size of Nvidia. Continue »
That all changed with the launch of Meta Platforms' Muse AI agent, which introduced an intriguing product that could open up multiple new revenue streams. Muse AI agents can independently perform a wide array of multistep tasks for users starting from simple initial instructions, including making appointments and reservations, planning and booking trips, shopping, writing emails, creating budgets, and even negotiating with companies to lower bills. The agents are free to use, and Meta won't share the data with its ad systems. However, the company can monetize the agents in a couple of ways.
First, its free tier has a limited number of tokens, so power users who want to do more with Muse will need to buy higher-usage subscriptions. The $20-a-month plan includes 500 million tokens per week, while the $100-per-month maximum plans include 3 billion tokens per week. The latter subscription is largely for those who plan to use AI agents constantly.
There are no other differences between the plans besides token use. Meta expects most users to remain on its free plan, but that does give it a nice start toward a recurring subscription business.
The bigger revenue opportunity for Meta is through transaction processing and affiliate fees. The company will take a small cut of the proceeds when its AI Muse agents help facilitate transactions or direct users to certain products. Another huge opportunity involves using Muse agents to automate and monetize its large Facebook Marketplace presence, which currently generates little revenue.
The early reception for the agents has been strong. According to Apptopia, the new app saw 1.8 million downloads in the U.S. and Canada within its first 12 days. SimilarWeb reported approximately 700,000 daily users just 11 days after its introduction. Evercore analyst Mark Mahaney, meanwhile, is predicting Muse will reach 100 million users over the next six to 12 months.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Meta also has plans to move its agents beyond personal AI. A few weeks after its original announcement, the company introduced Muse agents for small businesses, connecting them to popular software platforms such as Salesforce's Slack, Zoom, Box, and Canva. Similar to personal agents, the commercial version of the service will have a free tier with relatively low usage limits and subscription tiers with higher ones.
Meta also announced that it is launching an enterprise platform that will bring together its AI agents, AI models, coding tools, and AI infrastructure on one platform. This is a much broader and deeper push, and the company poached MongoDB CEO Chirantan "CJ" Desai to lead the charge. This is a huge opportunity, but it also pits the company against some pretty large foes.
Despite the recent jump in its stock price, Meta is still attractively valued, trading at 21 times analysts' 2027 earnings estimates. Meanwhile, it's been seeing strong growth in its core social media advertising business, with AI helping improve its recommendation algorithm to keep users on its platform longer and boost ad conversions.
Meta was already hitting on all cylinders with its core business, so if you add new revenue streams beyond advertising, it has the potential to become the next big AI stock in the coming years. Expect its recent rebound to continue as it demonstrates that its AI investments were worthwhile.
Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Meta Platforms, Salesforce, and Zoom Communications. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Evercore, Meta Platforms, MongoDB, Salesforce, and Zoom Communications. The Motley Fool recommends Box. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.