Meta Platforms closed the books on a third quarter that saw revenue climb to $64.60 billion, up 26% from a year earlier, while CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed that more than 10 million people in the United States and Canada had set up personal AI agents through Muse, the company's new assistant launched in August 2026. Net income reached $9.86 billion, or $3.83 per share, for the July-September period — more than triple what Meta earned in the same quarter last year.
The revenue figure topped Wall Street expectations, which WSOC TV reported at $63.34 billion, though CNBC put the analyst consensus slightly higher at $63.37 billion. Either way, Meta cleared the bar. The company's profit jump came even as it absorbed a roughly $9.89 billion settlement-related charge tied to an August 2026 agreement with dozens of state attorneys general over the effects of social media on teen mental health, under which Meta agreed to steps including keeping children under 13 off Instagram and Facebook and placing teens ages 14 to 18 into age-appropriate accounts, according to WSOC TV. Excluding that charge, earnings would have been $7.40 per share, per the same report. Variety separately characterized the settlement-related costs as a nearly $10 billion hit to the quarter, noting that Wall Street largely shrugged it off, per Variety.
Muse Downloads Outpace ChatGPT, Grok and Claude
Zuckerberg said roughly 25% of people who had set up Muse were using it on any given day, a usage rate that points to genuine stickiness rather than a one-time download spike, according to CNBC's live coverage of the earnings call. Separately, Yahoo Finance reported that Muse had logged 10.9 million downloads since its September debut, with 10.2 million of those coming from the United States, citing data described in its report on the app's milestone.
That download count, per the same TechCrunch analysis, outpaces rival AI apps by a wide margin: ChatGPT saw 3.7 million U.S. downloads in its first 40 days on the market, while Grok and Claude saw only 500,000 and 200,000, respectively. Sensor Tower data cited in the report found that only 11 other apps have ever reached 10 million U.S. downloads within their first 40 days — a milestone most recently hit by Meta's own Threads, according to a separate account from Yahoo Finance. That same report noted U.S. downloads of OpenAI's ChatGPT had declined 25% over the prior 30-day period even as Muse was climbing.
Retention Numbers and a Shopping Push
Muse's daily active users reached 2.5 million for the first time on Oct. 16, a 15% week-over-week increase, and the app has held the No. 1 spot on the U.S. App Store every day except Oct. 19, plus a 30-day run atop Google Play, per the TechCrunch report. Its retention also topped competitor averages: a 30% rate after seven days and 23% after 14 days in the U.S., compared with industry averages of 19% and 16%.
Meta has been pouring marketing dollars behind the push, allocating 39% of its total advertising spend to Muse in October, up from 23% the month before, the outlet's report states. Part of that bet centers on commerce — Muse uses Plaid's connector to enable agentic shopping, according to a separate TechCrunch report on the assistant's early activity. Meta has said it ultimately intends to monetize Muse by keeping it free for most users while taking a cut of commerce conducted through the platform, with some advanced features potentially requiring payment, and the company said it expects to improve Muse's cost efficiency by more than tenfold over the next year as it scales toward profitability.
Wall Street's Longer-Term Bet on AI Agents
Deutsche Bank analyst Benjamin Black has projected Muse could generate roughly $36 billion in sales by 2030 if it reaches up to 8% of Meta's revenue, though his lower-end estimate sits at just $2.4 billion, according to the Yahoo Finance report. The wide spread underscores how early the agentic-AI product category still is, even as Meta leans harder into it.
Zuckerberg told investors on the earnings call that Meta hit milestones toward delivering personal superintelligence and pointed to the launch of Muse and Muse Wonder, described as the company's first frontier model, as evidence that its investments are paying off. He added that the company's core business is strong and that Meta is seeing velocity across the board, according to CNBC's live updates from the call.
Capital Spending Climbs as Reality Labs Keeps Losing Money
Meta also narrowed its full-year 2026 data-center capital expenditure range, raising the lower end to $135 billion from $130 billion while keeping the upper bound at $145 billion, per CNBC. That spending surge sits alongside continued losses at Reality Labs, the company's VR and AI-device unit, which posted $443 million in third-quarter sales against $4.13 billion in losses.
Total expenses for the quarter reached $51.61 billion, up 68% year-over-year, largely reflecting the settlement charge. Meta's workforce also shrank during the period, though reports diverge on the exact scale: CNBC cited finance chief Susan Li describing a 12% quarter-over-quarter drop to 66,000 employees, while WSOC TV reported 66,775 employees as of Sept. 30, 2026, a 15% year-over-year decrease. Daily active people across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp averaged 3.64 billion for the quarter, just below the 3.65 billion analysts had expected, per CNBC.
Looking Ahead to the Holiday Quarter
Meta guided for fourth-quarter revenue of $73 billion to $76 billion, a range whose midpoint tops the $73.73 billion analysts had penciled in, according to CNBC's report on the forecast. Shares moved higher after the results dropped, though the size of the pop depends on which account you read: WSOC TV reported a 2.9% after-hours gain, while Variety described a 5% jump after market close. Meta, headquartered in Menlo Park, California, enters the holiday shopping season with its AI assistant still riding a wave of downloads, having reached a milestone faster than ChatGPT, Grok and Claude this year.
