Meta's Muse tops Apple's US free iPhone chart on September 20, with ChatGPT at No. 2
Meta's Muse sat at number one on Apple's free iPhone chart in the United States on September 20, 12 days after the app launched. Apple's own top free feed, in the reading published early that morning, put Muse first and OpenAI's ChatGPT second, with Google Gemini at 10 and Claude by Anthropic just inside the top 30.
Meta's first App Store screenshot for Muse shows the agent filling in a form it found in the owner's email. Image: Meta
Apple rebuilds the list from recent download activity, so the order shifts from one reading to the next. It is also the narrowest measure of success the App Store offers, and Apple publishes a second chart that tells a different story.
The free chart counts downloads, not users
The top free ranking tracks how fast an app is being installed, so a two-week-old launch with a large marketing push can outrank an app with far more people using it every day. It says nothing about how many of those installs turn into regular use, and nothing about revenue.
The revenue picture sits on the top grossing chart, and Muse is not on it. Apple's US top grossing list, in the reading published on the morning of September 20, is led by ChatGPT, with Claude by Anthropic at 16 and Grok AI at 24. Muse does not appear anywhere in the top 50.
Meta says Muse is "free for most of what people need, with subscription plans for people who want to do more". On Apple's numbers, the free part is working and the paid part has yet to register.
Muse is the agent Meta wants on your face
The chart position is worth a second look here because Muse is not meant to stay on the phone. Meta says the agent is rolling out in the US on iOS, Android and muse.ai, and is "coming soon to AI glasses", without giving a date.
Meta describes Muse as a personal agent that runs inside Muse Secure VM, a dedicated virtual machine holding both the agent and the owner's data, with a separate Sentinel agent that asks for permission before an action reaches the internet. Meta says it can open a browser, fill out forms and negotiate on someone's behalf. That is the pitch for a pair of glasses with no screen and no keyboard, where an assistant that can finish a task is worth more than one that can describe it.
The company has been filling in the rest of the product quickly. Muse picked up a Mac app in mid-September, and Apple's listing shows the iPhone version was last updated on September 17.
Meta Connect follows on September 23
Meta has a stage booked for whatever comes next. Meta Connect runs on September 23 and 24, and the company has said nothing publicly about which glasses will get Muse, or when.
The competitive read is narrower than the headline number suggests. ChatGPT has been the default AI app on iPhone for years, it still leads the grossing chart, and OpenAI is in the middle of reshuffling its paid tiers, none of which a download ranking captures.
What Apple's September 20 reading does show is that a 12-day-old agent is being installed more often than ChatGPT, and that nobody has yet spent enough inside it to reach the chart that counts money.
