Meta’s new AI app, Muse, pulled more downloads in its first 12 days than ChatGPT did in the same window after its mobile launch. That’s the headline finding from market intelligence firm Apptopia, as reported by TechCrunch AI. The comparison covers the U.S. and Canada only, but the gap isn’t small.
Here are the numbers, apples-to-apples (iOS only, U.S. and Canada, first 12 days):
- Muse: 1.8 million downloads
- ChatGPT: 1.3 million downloads
Globally, Muse hit 2.8 million total installs in that same 12-day stretch. It also climbed from No. 2 to No. 1 on the U.S. App Store, passing ChatGPT along the way, per Business Insider.
The engagement number matters more
Downloads are cheap. Daily active users tell you whether people came back. TechCrunch AI reports that Apptopia’s estimates show Muse at 642,000 U.S. daily active users across iOS and Android, versus 231,000 for ChatGPT at the equivalent point.
That’s not a fair fight, since ChatGPT launched on iOS only. So Apptopia narrowed it again. On iOS alone, Muse still sits at 359,000 daily users, above ChatGPT’s launch-era figure.
What stands out here is the ratio. Roughly one in five Muse installs turns into a daily user. For a consumer AI app with no track record, that’s a healthy retention signal, not just a marketing spike.
Why the comparison was hard until now
The two apps took different launch paths. ChatGPT went global but iOS-only. Muse launched on both app stores but only in two countries. Apptopia had to strip both datasets down to a common slice to make the numbers line up. That’s the right move, and it’s why this report carries more weight than the usual “app X is crushing app Y” chatter.
One caveat that TechCrunch AI flags clearly: Apptopia is a third-party estimator. It doesn’t see Meta’s internal dashboards. Meta hasn’t published its own figures and hadn’t responded to a request for comment. Treat these as ballpark numbers. Even so, the ballpark is big enough to be interesting.
The Threads playbook, again
This is significant because Meta has already run this exact play once. When Threads launched, Meta pushed it hard through Instagram and Facebook. Threads now has more than 500 million users. Muse connects to both of those platforms and also runs inside WhatsApp, which gives it three of the largest distribution surfaces on earth.
Apptopia’s user overlap data backs this up. Over 95% of Muse users are also Facebook users. About 63% are on Instagram. Meta isn’t fighting for new attention. It’s redirecting attention it already owns.
Compare that with OpenAI, which had to build its mobile audience from scratch and still hit 1.3 million in 12 days on brand power alone. Meta gets to skip the cold-start problem entirely.
What this means for the AI app race
A few things shift if Muse holds this pace:
- Distribution beats model quality for consumer adoption. Nobody is arguing Muse has the best underlying model. It has the best funnel. That’s a lesson for every AI startup counting on “our model is smarter” as a go-to-market plan.
- ChatGPT’s consumer moat looks thinner. OpenAI’s advantage has been habit and brand. Meta is attacking both with an app that lives where people already spend hours a day.
- The Android gap is real. Muse launched on both platforms from day one. ChatGPT’s iOS-first strategy cost it months of Android reach. Expect every major AI launch from here on to ship on both stores simultaneously.
What to do with this
If you build AI products: your distribution plan is your product plan. Figure out where your users already are and go there, rather than asking them to come to you.
If you’re a business picking AI tools for your team: don’t read App Store rankings as a quality signal. Muse’s climb says a lot about Meta’s reach and very little about whether it’s the right tool for your workflow. Test on your own tasks.
If you track the industry: watch the 30-day and 90-day retention numbers, not the launch week. Threads spiked at launch, dropped hard, then rebuilt. Muse will probably follow a similar curve. The question is where it lands after the cross-promotion eases off.
Meta hasn’t confirmed any of this yet, and the next round of Apptopia and Appfigures data will show whether the early surge holds. The full breakdown is over at TechCrunch AI.