BofA Warns: Meta's Muse Threatens Apple's Services Revenue
nashnova research
Meta's AI agent Muse hit 2.5 million downloads in just two weeks. BofA analyst Wamsi Mohan warns the real threat to Apple isn't phone sales — it's who captures user intent and controls the transaction entry point.
What does Muse actually do, and why should Apple worry?
Muse is Meta's AI agent — a program that carries out tasks on your behalf. Give it one command and it can book flights or shop online, all without leaving the chat interface.
This means → the path from intent to purchase bypasses Apple's App Store and search layer entirely. Traffic fees and commissions stop flowing through Apple.
In plain terms = you used to open the App Store, find an app, then place an order. Now you just tell Muse what you want — Apple becomes a middleman that gets skipped.
Are merchants already picking sides?
Shopify has opened its full product catalog and Shop Pay to Muse. Expedia and PayPal followed suit.
Amazon, however, blocked Muse outright — refusing to let Meta's agent touch its transaction loop.
This reflects a rapid formation of alliances around who controls merchant selection. Apple's App Store search-revenue sharing and commission logic face a structural challenge.
Can Apple's Siri meet this fight?
BofA analyst Mohan notes that the rebuilt Siri AI has entered the chatbot arena, but still lacks agentic capability — it can talk, but it can't act on your behalf.
Closing that gap requires on-device intent recognition, memory storage, and permission management, plus private-cloud browser automation — a systems effort spanning hardware, software, and services.
In plain terms = Siri today is an assistant that talks but doesn't do. Muse is already an agent that gets things done for you.
If the threat is this serious, why does the analyst still say "buy"?
Mohan keeps his Buy rating and $370 price target on Apple. His core thesis: Apple's integrated hardware + software + services stack makes it the eventual winner in AI edge computing.
This means → BofA is betting Apple can grow agentic capability inside its own ecosystem before Meta captures it from the outside.
On the day of the report, Apple shares fell 1.8% to $332.22; the stock is still up roughly 22% year-to-date. The key test: whether Apple can mount an effective agentic response before the next software cycle.
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