Meta’s Muse was among the hottest topics on corporate earnings calls in recent weeks. Meta has claimed that the agentic AI tool, which lets users automate various online tasks, is becoming a major force in shopping, with millions of people using it to make purchases of more than $200 on average.
\n\nWall Street fears that proactive shopping assistants like Muse will erode brand loyalty, ignite price wars, and squeeze corporate profits. Yet on the earnings calls and in conversations with WIRED, executives across roughly 50 companies—spanning travel, internet providers, food, and self-storage—shrugged off immediate disruption. In fact, many insisted they would mostly benefit from any real widespread adoption of agents.
\n\nFood delivery app DoorDash described the number of orders from Muse and other agents as in the “hundreds.” T-Mobile remarked, “We haven’t seen anything of significance” from agents. Hotel chain Hilton was more direct, calling bookings from them “insignificant.” The banking provider Ally Financial characterized activity as “quite low,” while eBay termed it “very, very small.”
\n\nWhile financial experts have suspected that users may ask Muse to dump unused subscriptions and memberships, fitness chain Life Time Group said it has “seen zero” cancellations from agents. Public Storage and Hartford Insurance…
Original source: https://www.wired.com/