Meta's Chief AI Officer discloses Muse's monetization path: ad-free, subscription and enterprise service fees, commission on shopping transactions

Meta is trying to find a monetization path for its AI business that differs from traditional advertising.

Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang said in an interview with Nikkei that Meta's personal AI agent Muse will remain ad-free, with ordinary users able to use it for free, but advanced features and enterprise services will be charged, and the company also plans to take a commission from shopping transactions facilitated by the agent. Wang said Muse can not only answer questions but also perform tasks on users' behalf, saving them time and money, making it more useful than previous AI products.

On Friday, October 23, the day Nikkei published the article, Muse launched in the Japanese market for the first time. After launching in North America on September 8, Muse received an enthusiastic response, with downloads of the related app reaching 10 million in six weeks, growing faster than some competitors including ChatGPT.

Alexandr Wang said Muse is free for ordinary users, and Meta hopes to eventually bring it to billions of users. However, for heavy users and those who want to use the most advanced models, the company has already launched subscription plans. Meta also plans to offer paid services to enterprises, but Wang did not disclose specific pricing or a launch timeline.

Unlike Meta's social platforms, which rely on advertising for monetization, Wang made clear: "There are no ads inside Muse, and we have no plans to run ads."

This means that, at least under current plans, Meta will not directly place ads into Muse's interface.

For Meta, where advertising accounts for more than 95% of revenue, Muse's monetization path is of special significance. As the product expands into more markets and the company continues to invest huge sums in building AI infrastructure, whether Meta can convert user growth into sustainable revenue is becoming a focus of market attention.

Commission on agent shopping, exploring transaction commission revenue

In addition to subscriptions and enterprise services, Meta also plans to take a commission from shopping transactions users complete through the agent, extending Muse from an information and task assistant further into consumption scenarios.

This model is expected to allow Meta to earn transaction revenue beyond advertising, but how exactly it will be implemented remains to be seen.

Meta has not disclosed the commission rate, the scope of applicable merchants, or an official launch date, and the final revenue scale will depend on Muse's task execution capabilities, merchant participation, and whether users are willing to hand shopping decisions to the agent.

Alexandr Wang believes that Meta's own technical infrastructure, security systems, and data centers are important advantages that are difficult for competitors to replicate. For a personal AI agent that needs to execute tasks, process user information, and connect different services, the scale, reliability, and security of infrastructure are as important as model capabilities.

Meta is investing huge sums in this infrastructure.

While releasing its earnings after the U.S. market close on Wednesday, Meta announced that its latest 2026 capital expenditure guidance range is $135 billion to $145 billion, raising the low end of the guidance range by $5 billion.

On Thursday, Meta also disclosed in a regulatory filing that as of the end of September, the company's lease obligations not yet commenced and irrevocable contractual commitments totaled about $810 billion, and if up to about $14.7 billion in contingent cloud computing capacity purchase obligations are included, total future committed investment rises to nearly $825 billion.

These investments serve both Meta's existing business and will support the development of a new generation of AI models and products. Whether the infrastructure can be translated into stronger product capabilities and further drive subscription, enterprise services, and transaction commission revenue will be key to whether Muse's commercialization can make progress. Risk disclosure and disclaimer

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