On September 21, U.S. stock markets saw a significant surge in semiconductor stocks, driven by Meta's personal AI agent, Muse.
On that day, Meta's stock closed up 11.43% at $741.24, marking its highest closing price in nearly a year since October. AMD, a major client of Meta, also saw its stock rise by 9.95% to $615.52, reaching an all-time high with a market capitalization surpassing $1 trillion (approximately 1,361 trillion won). Intel's stock jumped 12.14%, while Nvidia, known as the leader in AI, increased by 2.3%, contributing to a broad rally in the semiconductor sector. This trend continued into September 22, with Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix both rising over 2% in the Korean market, reflecting strong buying interest in the semiconductor industry.
The surge in semiconductor stocks is largely attributed to the launch of Muse, which Meta introduced on September 8 as the world's first personal AI agent for everyone. Unlike typical generative AIs that respond to user requests, Muse operates as an AI agent that can perform tasks independently. It can handle travel bookings, schedule management, and purchases from e-commerce sites, as well as create annual workout plans or new business strategies. The launch of this personal AI agent is expected to drive demand for AI agents and the associated semiconductor needs, positively impacting stock prices in the semiconductor sector.
The Muse app reached 448,000 daily active users (DAU) just 10 days after its launch on September 18. The following day, it recorded 264,000 downloads in the U.S., setting a new record. In comparison, OpenAI's ChatGPT, launched at the end of 2022, took 49 days to reach 450,000 DAU and one year to exceed 200,000 daily downloads. This rapid user adoption has propelled the Muse app to the top of both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store download charts.
In a report released on the same day, U.S. investment bank Evercore ISI stated, "Meta has achieved success with Muse," calling it a clear example of successful product innovation. They noted that this demonstrates that Meta's $200 billion (approximately 273.76 trillion won) investment in AI has not been in vain and could significantly enhance user engagement and participation.
To ensure safety and privacy, Muse operates within a dedicated virtual machine called Meta Secure VM, using its own browser. The free version allows for the use of 100 million tokens per week, while users can opt for a monthly plan of $20 (500 million tokens per week) or $100 (3 billion tokens per week) for additional usage.
The popularity of Muse is expected to spark a competitive development race for AI agents, with predictions that AI agents will become the next growth driver in the AI industry. U.S. tech publication The Information reported that OpenAI is accelerating the development of consumer AI agents similar to Meta's Muse and SpaceX AI's Grok Bot.
U.S. business media outlet Business Insider noted, "A new AI technology is emerging that is gaining attention: personal AI agents." They described Meta's Muse TV advertisement as another sign of the mainstreaming of AI agents. U.S. investment bank JP Morgan projected that the total addressable market (TAM) for AI agents could reach tens of trillions of dollars in the long term, equivalent to the U.S. annual GDP of $32.5 trillion.
However, tensions among big tech companies over AI agent functionalities, such as shopping, may increase. For instance, Amazon announced it has blocked Muse's access to its shopping site. While Amazon has developed its own automated shopping tool, it has previously restricted bots from competing AI companies like Perplexity from operating on its platform. Bloomberg reported that as consumers begin using AI bots for purchases, these bots may increasingly choose other e-commerce sites, potentially negatively impacting Amazon's sales and advertising revenue.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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