Track market-moving stories before they get noisy

Few large-cap stocks had a rougher summer than Meta Platforms. The company reported strong revenue growth twice in a row, and investors sold the stock both times.

After first-quarter results in April, shares fell more than 8%. After the second quarter in July, they dropped roughly 8% more. By the end of August, the stock that had been one of the great compounders of the past three years was down 13% in 2026, all while the S&P 500 had gained more than 10%.

Something has changed in the past month. Meta has clawed back nearly 30%, outperforming the broader market as we inch closer to the fourth quarter. And the reasons behind that rebound suggest this may be more than a relief rally.

Image Source: StockCharts

What Went WrongIt’s worth being clear about why investors punished Meta, because the concern was legitimate.

The second-quarter report showed revenue growing 28% to $60.8 billion — an excellent number for a company of this size. But earnings of $6.18 per share missed the roughly $7.10 consensus, and the reason was spending. Capital expenditures hit $31.1 billion in the quarter, up 57% from the first quarter, consuming about 98% of the company’s $31.86 billion in operating cash flow. Free cash flow shrank to $784 million.

Management narrowed its 2026 capex guidance to a range of $130 billion to $145 billion — nearly double the $72.2 billion spent in 2025 — and declined to offer a 2027 figure. Meta also took on another $24.9 billion of debt, bringing long-term debt to $83.7 billion, and repurchased zero shares for the second straight quarter after buying back $26.3 billion in 2025.

For a company long prized for its capital returns, that was a genuine shift in identity. Meta had gone from returning capital to raising it, and investors wanted to know what the money was buying.

The Answer Arrived in SeptemberEarlier this month, Meta (META - Free Report) began answering that question.

The company launched Muse, a personal AI agent powered by its Muse Spark family of models. The early reception was striking: the app reached as high as No. 3 in the U.S. App Store on its second day, with early usage running roughly ten times that of internal testing cohorts. Barron’s described it as potentially the biggest AI launch since ChatGPT.

Just as importantly, the underlying technology appears to have reached the frontier. JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth wrote that Meta’s Superintelligence Lab “essentially delivered” on its goal of reaching the frontier within a year, culminating in Muse Spark 1.3, which he describes as competitive with leading models from OpenAI and Anthropic.

JPMorgan upgraded the stock to Overweight from Neutral earlier this month, raising its price target to $820 from $640, arguing that Meta is “in the early stages of releasing frontier models and AI-driven products beyond advertising, notably Muse AI agent and Meta Model API access.”

That phrase — beyond advertising — is the heart of the bull case.

The Ad Engine Never BrokeBefore getting to the new opportunities, it’s worth remembering that Meta’s core business was never the problem.

Advertising revenue grew 27% to $59.4 billion in the second quarter, driven by 14% growth in ad impressions and a 12% increase in average price per ad. Both volume and pricing rising together is the signature of a platform that’s gaining share, not losing it.

The AI spending is already paying off here. Meta’s GEM ad-ranking system has driven an 8.3% lift in Facebook ad clicks and a 15.7% improvement in conversions in early testing. Advantage+, the company’s AI-powered campaign automation suite, now runs at a $75 billion annual revenue rate. Meta reaches 3.6 billion people every day across its family of apps — a distribution advantage that no competitor can replicate.

New Ways to MonetizeWhat makes Meta’s situation different from a year ago is that the AI investment now has visible paths to revenue beyond making ads work better.

The first is the Muse agent itself, a consumer product with genuine traction. The second is Meta Model API access, which lets developers and enterprises pay to use Meta’s frontier models directly.

The third is the most interesting. On the second-quarter call, CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted that Meta is receiving offers for its computing capacity at a significant premium to what the company paid for it. That matters enormously for the capex debate. If Meta’s own AI products don’t absorb every dollar of the buildout, the company holds an asset that other buyers want to rent. The downside scenario for this spending looks considerably less dire than the market feared in July.

That’s why Wednesday matters. Meta hosts its annual Connect event on September 23rd, where the company is expected to showcase Muse’s capabilities further and likely detail its AI product roadmap. It’s the next opportunity to show analysts something concrete enough to change their models.

Bottom LineMeta spent the summer being judged as a company spending too much with too little to show for it. In September, it started showing.

The core ad business is still growing at a healthy clip, the frontier models appear competitive, and the capex now has a credible fallback in compute demand.

Of course, the risks are real: free cash flow remains compressed, the balance sheet carries more debt than at any point in the company’s history, and estimates are still falling. But with most of the capex reset already reflected in a stock that has trailed the market all year, Meta looks positioned to resume the uptrend that made it one of the defining winners of this cycle.

Meta (META.O) has been testing ‌a “human concierge” for its new personal AI assistant, Muse, which entails having human contractors quietly handle some of the phone calls placed via the digital agent, according to internal company posts seen by Reuters.

The Facebook and Instagram owner told employees about the test last week, shortly after the company publicly ​launched a phone calling feature for Muse.

Some employees have raised privacy concerns about human agents handling the calls, ​warning that it could result in sensitive information being shared unintentionally with contractors in call centers, ⁠the posts showed.

Asked about the feature, a Meta spokesperson said the response from employees has been "overwhelmingly positive" and that the purpose ​of the test was to "get feedback so we can implement safety and privacy protections and improve features before we release them ​publicly."

"We're working with merchants to continue improving this potential calling feature, and will only roll it out when it's ready and with the proper disclosures," said the spokesperson, Daniel Roberts.

MUSE TOPS US DOWNLOAD CHARTS
Meta's Muse agent has topped US app download charts in the two weeks since its ​debut, with more than 2.5 million downloads, according to data provided by market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.

The centerpiece of CEO Mark ​Zuckerberg's plan to supply "personal superintelligence" to the billions of people who use Meta's services daily, the AI bot can autonomously perform tasks like ‌sending emails, ⁠shopping and booking travel on a person's behalf.

Meta heavily emphasized the AI assistant's safety protections during its launch, telling would-be users that each agent would have its own secure “virtual machine,” or a dedicated computer in the cloud designed to keep people’s sessions isolated, and would keep sensitive information like passwords in separate secure storage.

With the phone calling feature, a Muse user can tell ​the agent to dial phone numbers ​for US businesses and ⁠talk with people on the other end to handle errands like booking haircuts, checking whether a store has an item in stock and getting quotes from different contractors.

After the call, the agent ​provides a summary and transcript of how the exchange played out in the Muse app.

Meta ​began having employees ⁠test out, or “dogfood,” the phone calling capability in August and gradually started rolling it out to Muse users in the days after the app’s debut, the internal posts showed.

It enabled the human concierge feature, also referred to as “human agent calls,” for half of Meta’s ⁠employees last ​week, according to the post announcing the feature to employees.

“Muse is now ​able to hand requests to a trained agent, who places the call and works it through,” the post said.

Employees who did not want to be included could ​join an opt-out group, according to the post.

META's 33% monthly surge reflects strong ads and AI momentum, but soaring capex, rising debt and weak cash flow remain key concerns.

Tuesday's selloff echoes the garden-variety selloffs earlier this year, driven by anxiety over AI displacing traditional industries.

Meta stocks surge after Muse launch FOX Business financial analyst Mike Murphy discusses Meta's stock surge after announcing their launch of Muse AI. Murphy discusses a potential Chinese trade deal.

Meta's recently launched Muse personal artificial intelligence (AI) agent app rose to the top of the Apple App Store after it launched earlier this month.

Muse ranked as the top free app in Apple's U.S. App Store, ranking ahead of another popular AI tool, OpenAI's ChatGPT.

The rise of Muse reflects a shift in how consumers are using AI, with agentic apps that help users with a variety of tasks, as opposed to a chatbot that can respond to a user's conversational prompts and perform research.

The Muse AI agent debuted in early September and is designed to access a person's apps across categories like email, calendar, payments, health, shopping and the smart home, the company said after the launch.

META INTRODUCES MUSE, A PERSONAL AI AGENT THAT CAN SEND EMAILS, BOOK TRAVEL

Meta's Muse agentic AI surpassed ChatGPT in the Apple App Store rankings. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Modeled on the open-source AI agent OpenClaw, Muse can autonomously send emails, book travel on the user's behalf, sell a car and lower a bill, according to Meta.

The Muse app allows people to choose what apps the AI agent can connect to and revoke access at any time.

Each Muse agent runs on its own virtual machine, a cloud-based emulation of a personal computer, which enables it to keep carrying out requests in the background even when a person is not actively using it.

ZUCKERBERG LAYS OUT VISION TO PUT SUPERINTELLIGENT AI IN EVERYONE'S HANDS

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has touted Meta's plans for superintelligent AI. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Meta said that users can tell Muse what they need to get done, and it will take action using the Muse Spark model that the company built for real-world agentic work. It can handle tasks such as sending an email or booking travel, as well as bigger projects.

The company said that once a user shares a goal with Muse, it helps them develop a personalized plan and coordinate their time and resources, while advancing the work on its own – opening browsers, filling out forms, and even negotiating on the user's behalf.

For longer tasks, Muse can continue to work after the app is closed but can come back when something changes or if it needs approval, like before sending an email or making a purchase, Meta said.

ZUCKERBERG SAYS AI SHOULD EMPOWER PEOPLE, NOT REPLACE THEM, IN NEW META VISION

Muse also remembers a user's preferences, giving it the ability to make suggestions unprompted and take action on details that were only mentioned once.

As an example, Meta said that Muse can turn a recipe reel saved on Instagram into a grocery list, then generate a suggested menu for a dinner party that takes into account their friends' dietary restrictions from prior gatherings before sending invites.

Ticker Security Last Change Change % META META PLATFORMS INC. 741.25 +76.02 +11.43% Syncing the Muse agent with a range of other apps that could contain a person's data increases the range of capabilities for the new tool, though it also poses safety and reliability risks if Muse misbehaves after being granted access to the user's personal information.

Meta said that it initially delayed the release of Muse in April to make it more secure, and the additional work allowed it to "cross the threshold" and meet minimum requirements for product safety, security, privacy, model performance and other metrics, according to Vishal Shah, vice president of AI products at Meta.

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The company plans to introduce Muse Confidential VM later this year, which will keep a user's data and communications with Muse in an encrypted format that only the user holds.

For decades, large enterprises have quietly profited from consumer inertia through confusing billing structures, complex subscription models, and call center labyrinths designed to wear down customers. However, that business model may soon run out of time, thanks to personal AI agents.

Key Takeaways

Meta’s Muse app demonstrates how personal AI agents can actively execute financial tasks like negotiating bills and finding unclaimed money.
Companies relying on consumer friction, particularly credit card issuers with complex rewards systems, face direct threats to their core revenue models.
Thematic ETFs like THNQ and ROBO offer financial advisors targeted exposure to the software, infrastructure, and physical automation driving personal AI.

See more: Non-Auto Industries Are Quietly Driving the Next Wave of Robot Adoption

Shifting the Balance of Consumer Power
We are approaching what could be the ChatGPT moment for personal AI, according to Zeno Mercer, Head of Robotics and AI Research at VettaFi. The early signs are already visible across consumer platforms.

Meta’s (META) Muse, which recently reached the top position in Apple’s App store, gives ordinary people a clear view of technology aligned with the individual rather than the corporation. The application demonstrates immediate utility by negotiating car insurance savings, lowering phone bills, surfacing unclaimed funds, and even navigating and helping fill out complex government forms. Rather than simply answering questions, this tool executes actions, such as shopping across multiple platforms, and learns personal preferences over time.

This development represents a structural rebalancing of market power. Businesses whose revenue models depend on friction are facing a necessary reckoning, Mercer said.

Business Models Under Pressure
Credit card issuers’ value propositions often rely on the underuse of complex rewards programs. They face a direct challenge to their bottom line if utilization rates of perks climb exponentially. Other sectors, from telecommunications to recurring subscription services, may experience pressure on top and bottom lines as AI agents optimize spending on behalf of consumers.

The transition will occur over time through deliberate adoption curves. Users retain control through permission-based settings that require explicit authorization before executing financial transactions, Mercer explained. Adoption will follow a curve shaped by trust, though it may accelerate given widespread familiarity with established platforms like ChatGPT. There is a clear appetite for this technology, demonstrated by Meta’s recent impressive stock performance. 

Beyond the individual household, the macroeconomic implications warrant close attention from financial advisors. As personal AI helps consumers secure competitive pricing and eliminate unnecessary expenditures, it introduces a subtle deflationary force into the broader economy. For central banks navigating persistent inflation, automated consumer advocacy offers a welcome structural tailwind.

Portfolio Exposure With THNQ and ROBO
For investors looking to capture the underlying secular tailwinds powering this transition, thematic strategies present a compelling entry point. Personal AI agents require massive computational power, refined algorithm architectures, and seamless infrastructure. The ROBO Global Artificial Intelligence ETF (THNQ) delivers direct exposure to the enablers, cloud providers, and software firms building the core technology stack required for autonomous agent execution.

Furthermore, as AI agents move beyond software applications, automation capabilities become essential. The ROBO Global Robotics and Automation Index ETF (ROBO) provides access to the global value chain of robotics.

Looking for regular updates? Subscribe here for weekly insights on robotics, AI, and healthcare technology, delivered straight to your inbox.

For more news, information, and analysis, visit the Artificial Intelligence Content Hub. 

vettafi.com is owned by VettaFi LLC (“VettaFi”). VettaFi is the index provider for THNQ and ROBO, for which it receives an index licensing fee. However, THNQ and ROBO are not issued, sponsored, endorsed, or sold by VettaFi. VettaFi and its affiliates have no obligation or liability in connection with the issuance, administration, marketing, or trading of THNQ and ROBO.

Meta Platform's Muse surge sets the stage for Connect 2026, as investors weigh fresh product catalysts against heavy AI spending, ad dependence and valuation.

I am downgrading Meta Platforms, Inc. from a Strong Buy to a Buy due to its recent stock surge. META's release of Muse proves that it is still doing quite well in the AI race, but it might be time to cool off from a 'strong buy' position. Muse, Meta's new personal AI agent, quickly reached the top spot on Apple's App Store.

Plastics recycling startup MacroCycle announced a new deal with Meta on Tuesday that will help speed the development of its first commercial plant.

Three-year-old MacroCycle, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has developed a novel way to process plastic waste that strips it of contaminants, making the resulting recycled material more attractive to customers. The startup says its technology generates 80% fewer carbon emissions than new, non-recycled virgin PET plastic (a common type of plastic used in bottles, containers and textiles). MacroCycle was a Top 20 finalist in the 2025 Startup Battlefield competition at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco.

Under the terms of the agreement, Meta will pay MacroCycle for the rights to those avoided emissions, which lets Meta count the reduction toward its own carbon footprint, which is growing dramatically as a result of the AI boom. A Meta spokesperson confirmed that this is the first such deal the company has signed. MacroCycle gave TechCrunch an exclusive preview of the news.

Payments for what are known as environmental attribute credits (EACs) will provide MacroCycle with a revenue stream that can help support the construction of the new plant, which will be built in the U.S.

Meta’s interest goes beyond the credits themselves. It hopes to help create a market for low-carbon materials like plastics, which are used in its supply chain for things like packaging and hardware. As that market grows, broader access to those materials should help lower the company’s overall carbon footprint.

MacroCycle says its demonstration plant will be capable of producing 5,000 metric tons of recycled plastic per year. The company’s process works by dissolving and purifying PET that’s present in a range of waste streams, including textiles, which have one of the lowest recycling rates of all materials at 0.5%.

The startup’s process loops plastic polymers back on themselves, creating rings called macrocycles, which is where the company gets its name. Solvents wash away contaminants, leaving the macrocycles behind. The loop is then opened, and the polymers can be linked together to form higher-quality plastics. The result is a material that’s indistinguishable from new plastic.

MacroCycle’s use of solvents instead of heat is a major source of its energy savings, which should also result in lower costs, too. The company’s goal is to produce recycled textiles domestically at prices that compete with those from overseas suppliers. The U.S. textile manufacturing industry has been hollowed out over the last 25 years, with employment in the sector down 85%.

MacroCycle is currently working to secure buyers for the material that its first plant will produce. The deal with Meta should make subsequent agreements with other companies easier to obtain, MacroCycle co-founder and CEO Stewart Peña Feliz told TechCrunch. Future plants, he added, will be capable of producing 50,000 metric tons of material per year.

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

Tim De Chant is a senior climate reporter at TechCrunch. He has written for a wide range of publications, including Wired magazine, the Chicago Tribune, Ars Technica, The Wire China, and NOVA Next, where he was founding editor.

De Chant is also a lecturer in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing, and he was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in 2018, during which time he studied climate technologies and explored new business models for journalism. He received his PhD in environmental science, policy, and management from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA degree in environmental studies, English, and biology from St. Olaf College.

You can contact or verify outreach from Tim by emailing [email protected].

Wall Street has turned bullish on Meta Platforms, betting that its new AI agent Muse could open a new revenue stream for the social media giant and reshape the company's ​AI monetization prospects.

Muse, launched on Sept. 8, is an AI assistant that can send emails, ‌book travel and complete transactions such as selling a car on behalf of a user. The basic version is free, with subscriptions priced at $20 and $100 a month for heavier use.

Since its launch, shares of Meta Platforms (META.O) have surged more than ​20%, outpacing the "Magnificent 7" group of US tech companies during the period. Shares have added ​over $200 billion in market capitalization to touch their highest level in more than seven ⁠months as of last close.

"While it is still early, we believe that Muse has the potential to ​become the most widely used consumer AI application since ChatGPT," J.P.Morgan analysts said in a note, crediting ​the app's early traction to strong product-market fit, Meta's distribution reach and a free tier that lowers the barrier to trial and repeat use.

The Muse app, available on iOS and Android but only in the US and Canada regions, has ​clocked 2.8 million downloads in the first 12 days of launch, according to data from Apptopia.

If compared ​on similar metrics to the first 12 days of OpenAI's ChatGPT, Muse has 1.8 million downloads versus 1.3 million ‌for ChatGPT.

Early ⁠reviews suggest "functionality is resonating with users, particularly agent's ability to execute multi-step tasks and workflows with limited user intervention", BofA Global Research analysts said.

Enthusiasm around Muse sparked a Wall Street tech rally on Monday, lifting Meta shares more than 11% and boosting chipmakers, including AMD (AMD.O) and Intel (INTC.O), with AMD crossing the $1 trillion ​valuation mark for the ​first time.

"The market has ⁠interpreted Muse as a boon for the already significantly bottlenecked CPU market," said Michael O'Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading.

Brokerage Jefferies estimated that if Muse could ​see 1 billion users by end of 2027 and at least 3% transition ​to a ⁠paid version then it could result in $10.8 billion in annualized revenue, as the brokerage raised its price target on Meta's stock to $875.

UBS Global Wealth Management analysts said in a note Meta's Muse provides "early evidence that consumer AI ⁠agents ​could achieve broad adoption, offering new AI monetization opportunities beyond enterprise ​application".

Of the 64 brokerages that cover Meta's stock, 57 rate it "buy" or higher with a median price target of $760, according to ​data compiled by LSEG.

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Meta Platforms (META) witnessed a jump in share price last session on above-average trading volume. The latest trend in earnings estimate revisions for the stock doesn't suggest further strength down the road.

Alexandr Wang’s #musemoneychallenge pitch says that Meta's new app can 'make you $1,000' almost instantly By You're currently following this author! Click to unsubscribe from email alerts.

Alexandr Wang says using Muse can help people save $1,000 almost instantly. Bloomberg/Getty Images Meta's Alexandr Wang says using his new AI agent can almost instantly "make you $1,000."

Or rather, save you $1,000. Wang, Meta's chief AI officer, and his team have been posting on X over the past week about how users can prompt Muse to review their finances and identify ways to claw back cash.

Then, the AI agent is supposed to help execute those tasks in the background, à la haggling over the phone with insurance companies for better deals, unsubscribing from that streaming service you never use, and sifting through the web for discounts.

Wang has been encouraging users to post financial wins in what he calls the #MuseMoneyChallenge, following the AI agent's September 8 launch.

Some people are biting. Startup founder Joseph Devoy said he used Muse to find car insurance that cost him $3,500 less a year than his original plan.

"Killer product," he wrote while posting a screenshot of his interaction with Muse.

One user said the AI agent found an unused book subscription his wife had forgotten to cancel a year ago and secured a refund for the amount spent.

IM SICK.@muse just found a monthly book subscription that my wife forgot to cancel, OVER A YEAR AGO.

my assistant cancelled the subscription, found their return/refund policy, and was able to get a year's worth of subscription back to me.

bonkers

— Chris Abraham 🐝 (@chrsabraham) September 15, 2026 Another said Muse discovered an unused $200 Verizon gift card for them.

"So it just paid for itself for the next year or two," they wrote.

A Coinbase product manager, Nick Prince, posted that he saved $1,250 at a car dealership when Muse helped him dodge upsells and a large fee.

However, many of the posts answering Wang's challenge came from Meta's own staff, who were eager to share the dollar figures they say Muse saved them from snagging a cheaper phone bill, canceling insurance plans, or returning Ikea furniture.

My personal @muse agent got me $2,120.95 already 🤯:
• $300/yr — negotiated my AT&T bill down
• $192 — Amazon returns I never got around to
• $47 — more returns on the way
• $230 — IKEA ALEX 9-drawer unit, returned end to end
• $516 — vet claim filed for my dog
• $836 —…

— armand (@armand_ruiz) September 15, 2026 Meta's press team did not immediately respond to a comment request sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.

Muse might not need much help from Wang's X posts for now. It's already hit No. 1 on the downloaded apps lists for the Apple and Google Play stores in the US, beating TikTok and ChatGPT.

Meta says it has close to 3.9 billion users across its services, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook.

Personal assistants like Muse aim to go far beyond what other AI tools — like ChatGPT, Claude, and OpenClaw — can do for users by automatically taking over tasks in their everyday lives with much less direction.

Instinct, an invite-only AI agent that's swept through Silicon Valley, offers much of the same. Business Insider's Pranav Dixit tried the tool earlier this month and wrote that the "service is nuts," reporting that it helped him book a cabin for his birthday, order whey protein from Costco, and arrange a dentist appointment.

Still, the limits have yet to be settled. Some businesses are already pushing back on AI agents like Muse flooding their phones and marketplaces.

On Monday, for example, Amazon blocked Muse from placing orders in its shopping carts, saying that using the program to make purchases on its website violated the retailer's terms of use.

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Matthew Loh You're currently following this author! Click to unsubscribe from email alerts.

Matthew is a senior reporter at Business Insider's Singapore bureau. He covers the defense industry, military technology, and evolving tactics in Ukraine, the US, and the Asia-Pacific region.He joined the team in June 2021, previously focusing on internet crime and labor, examining how these issues impact modern society in Asia, with a particular emphasis on China.Matthew's previous work has been featured in the South China Morning Post, as well as Singaporean news companies TODAY and The Business Times.

Meta

In this episode of Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing, Motley Fool contributors Travis Hoium, Lou Whiteman, and Jason Hall discuss:

Meta Muse.Consumer AI adoption.Apple Duo.Time machine.Inflation data.Stocks on our radar.To catch full episodes of all The Motley Fool's free podcasts, check out our podcast center. When you're ready to invest, check out this top 10 list of stocks to buy.

A full transcript is below.

This podcast was recorded on Sept. 11, 2026.

Travis Hoium: Apple has this duo, and we have a trio. Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing stars now. Welcome to Motley Fool and Gem's Investing. I’m Travis Hoium, joined by my trio of Lou Whiteman and Jason Hall. Guys, we have a lot to talk about here, but I do want to start with what I think might be the underrated biggest news of the day. Maybe this is our tech bubble. Maybe this is the investing bubble. But Jason, Meta came out with its Muse app. Have you tried this yet?

Jason Hall: I haven't tried it, but I've read through their copious marketing materials and the demo videos and things that they've put together for it. On the surface, and it's funny. Because the big thing we're talking about physically foreshadowing will be the next segment. But I do think this is by far the best packaged AI agent that we've seen for consumers. But we really don't know how well it's going to work in the real world for regular people once we get beyond the initial early adopters, the tech folks that have been involved in building it that have been using it in their real lives. To wanting a personal assistant helping making our lives easier, but there also seems to be a risk that this thing is actually going to throw more noise at people in the beginning. The question is there going to be enough emotional payback for people to stick with it long enough to actually deliver the promise of making life easier?

Travis Hoium: Let's get to what this app does. This is another artificial intelligence app. I was almost rolling my eyes when this came out because we have so many now. There's Gemini from Google. We've got Claude, we've got ChatGPT. To be fair, a lot of the functionality in this Muse app exists elsewhere. It's just hard to use. The interesting thing I downloaded it, I started playing with it a little bit. What was fascinating was it was very Apple like. I think you were alluding to that, Jason. But I hooked in. We need to talk a little bit about the privacy concerns and trusting Meta with all of your information. But what I thought was interesting plugging in just my calendar and email is you can just go, hey, I asked to add the schedule for my kids baseball game. It figured it all out, and it was perfect.

That is one of those massive pain points as a parent, as a person in the world, I get so many emails. Where's that one that has the schedule for this thing? It does just figure it out. First of all, it's Meta taking a page out of Apple's book, and that's partly from the people who they hired about a year ago. Nat Freeman, I think, was one of the people who's really instrumental in this happen in particular. But also, it seems like our digital lives have gotten far more cluttered over the past decade, so many emails, so many text messages. This is almost like the decluttering of that. Maybe that's the bullish case for AI use case, at least in a consumer standpoint.

Jason Hall: You mentioned kids’ sports, and I think you might have sold me, Travis. I have three different apps that I use for my son, just one kid, for his sports.

Travis Hoium: Not to mention school. Schools are on 18 different. It is a mess. There's band, and then there's math club, and it's so much to handle. If it's something that can start filtering those things down, it could be maybe a surprising success. Lou?

Lou Whiteman: Requires work. I don't mean that to be lazy, but the fun thing about enterprises is, if you can go into an enterprise and say, we can save you $0.02 on $1, you're halfway towards a sale, and they will do the work to put it in because it's a longtime saves. Consumers aren't like that. Consumers are any barrier to entry is too much. Travis, you whistled by the trust issues, but this is Meta we're talking about.

Travis Hoium: It's a big one.

Lou Whiteman: It is quite so you're asking me, especially with all the headlines right now, you're asking me, can go ahead and sign over my email account, sign over my calendar, sign over all of these things to a company the trend over the last 10 years is, do they know too much about me already? Even if it wasn't Meta, that's still work I have to do. The paradox here is even if it's as good as you say, Meta almost needs to show us that to motivate us to do the work that it takes to get that result. These things always end up as falling short of what the promise looks like just because if it's a consumer product and it requires changing in behavior or some out-of-the-ordinary behavior, it never ever works out the way the planners hope.

Travis Hoium: Jason, on top of that, I think Lou is right. The interesting thing in this entire space, the background of this is we're talking about trillions of dollars worth of investment here in these products. If there's no payoff, then as investors, which we are on this show, then it makes it really hard to invest in these companies. You can make a great product and it cannot make money. With this in particular, what I think is fascinating is, I think it's a really good product, but Meta does not have very much of my data. I don't use Facebook. I don't really use Instagram. Maybe there are people that your soccer games are all in Meta platforms but the value was really plugging into things like Gmail and my calendar, which is also on a Google product. Is this another case where in three weeks, Google's going to release exactly the same thing, have the exact same functionality, and they're go, Hey, you know what? This data's already in our Wald Garden. Trust us because you already do with all of this stuff.

Jason Hall: That's why frankly, I'm a little dubious that this product, at least from Meta is even going to still exist in five years. Because I don't know if people want something like this from the company behind Facebook and Instagram for all of the reasons that both of you talked about. I think the friction one is a big deal. Maybe you download the app, and then you're like, you want to connect to my what? You want access to what? Now, they're really trying to be upfront about, like, safety with that thing and talking about how Muse actually doesn't see passwords, doesn't see credit card numbers, and how, if you have the AI assistant put together a shopping list of things that you need to buy for your kids first day of first grade, it will automatically make a shopping cart with all of those things in it and then ask you to approve it. Then the system automatically creates a temporary one-time credit card. They're talking about these things about, Hey, guys, you can really trust. They're really leaning into that.

But to Lou’s point, there's so much less friction already for Google users. They already have that information. A lot of people are already using a Google Wallet. Same thing with Apple. If Apple can figure out how to do AI, people already trust those things. I think because the nature of the relationships are already built there, and again, you think about the incentives for Meta is going to have to lose money on this for a long time. Before they get to the point where they can integrate ads or build out those sales partnerships where they get a cut. But maybe they end up with success, and then they pull a reverse Netflix in five years and move people off of the ad based tier onto like a paid premium version, which I do think is probably the economic model that's going to work for this is a paid premium version. [OVERLAPPING].

Travis Hoium: That's my next question for you is what's the business model behind this? Because I think this is the challenge as we think about all the trillions of dollars that are being spent. Many of these companies are losing money, partly because they're building new models, and those are really expensive, but also because even just the inference, especially on the consumer side does not make money. Facebook and Meta is a great example of a company that backed into a phenomenal business model when Sheryl Sandberg came into the company. I don't know that Mark Zuckerberg necessarily wanted to be an advertising company when he started Facebook, but that's where the money is now, but as we look to the future of artificial intelligence, it almost seems ads and modifying what you're seeing with your AI is not a great user experience. Zuckerberg has talked in the last, 24 or 48 hours about, Hey, we think people are going to do commerce on here. We'll take a small cut of that commerce, and that'll be a great business for us. But is that really going to work? Because I have such a hard time figuring out where is the actual money coming from any of these companies if consumers actually do adopt this stuff?

Lou Whiteman: They're the masters at one trillion small cuts really do matter. I guess I shouldn't be dismissive, but I do think you're right. The world is changing. It's not as simple as it was. Remember, we're not just talking about covering the cost. These are companies that have historically enjoyed double digits return on invested capital. There is an even bigger bogie to making this a success than just we covered our cost. If they're spending 300 billion a year, they need to make 600 billion just to make this all work out to historical norms, and as investors, that's the valuations we assign. Ideally, yes, they need to give us a product that's worth us spending 25, 30, whatever it is.

Unfortunately, they have to give it to us for free for an extended period of time and make us I hate to say addicted with these things because that's a hurt word for Meta right now. But they need for an extended period of time to convince us that this is just we can't live without it. That takes a long time and a lot of money. As Jason said, look, I'm not all that tech savvy. I might be better than some. But my quick reaction is that, wow, all of these things are on my phone anyway. My phone should do this, not a new app? Now, we all know that there's apps going on there, but why isn't that Gemini in Siri? The just such natural.

Travis Hoium: I wonder if it will be in six months.

Lou Whiteman: I don't know why it wouldn't be, because not only are they already locked in on one of these things, but it is just there. We continuously underestimate just the fact that the smartphone was an amazing invention. It basically gives us what we need. Things that can just come out of that are much more likely to go with the consumer because that's what the consumer already knows. I'm with Jason. This may be the best product out there, and I'd be surprised if it's success five years down the line.

Travis Hoium: It is a fascinating space because I do think that in 2026, we have seen fundamental shifts in the way that enterprises view AI, that was with some of the Cloud advancements in the opening advancements recently from the enterprise side. This seemed to be something that was really big from a consumer side, but that's it. Is there any money there? That is the trillion dollar question for companies like Meta. When we come back, we're going to talk about Apple's newest product. You listening to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing.

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Travis Hoium: Welcome back to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. A couple of years ago, this would have led the show, but maybe tells you where AI is in our Zeitgeist right now, but Apple introduced some new products in next generation of the iPhone, at least the pro version, and then also the new duo. Lou, you are a bleeding-edge tech adopter here. Are you interested in getting a $2,000 foldable phone?

Lou Whiteman: I am bleeding edge. I have the new Pixel already. I agree with that. It looks cool, I guess. A 2,000.

Travis Hoium: It does look cool. The animations are pretty amazing.

Lou Whiteman: But here's the thing, and I'm an old, so I still watch TV on the television and things like that. I don't really think. I don't even have a tablet. It feels to me that, yes, for every use case there is for the bigger phone are just basically a tablet screen on a phone. There's also a time when it's a pain. I'm really not looking forward to all of the Gen Z walking down the street with an entire phone, blocking their eyes [LAUGHTER] instead of.

Travis Hoium: I hadn't even thought of that. We're basically walking around with an iPad in front of us.

Lou Whiteman: I think there's a market there. I think it appears to be a better product. It's not for me. I think I think it'll be an Apple success, but I don't think it's going to be another iPhone moment where it just changes the way everyone does everything. I think it's still a niche product for those who I don't know, like doing spreadsheets or don't have a TV they could watch on their phone, and so just need that screen real estate? I don't think I need more real estate on my phone.

Jason Hall: I don't think it has to be like a watershed product, changing the industry entirely for this to be a success. It's a $2,000 gigantic phone.

Travis Hoium: Does that tell us a lot about Apple? Is, though, because it does seem like the incremental moves are actually enough to keep investors happy and the company happy, and it's fine.

Jason Hall: But I think that Apple's always been like an incremental improvement company. Apple's never been the first mover ever. It did not create the first PC. It did not make the first music device. The iPod was not the first music device. The innovation there was software to be able to buy individual songs. Its biggest innovation has been building an ecosystem over time. The iPhone was simply better than anything else when it first came out. I think it's gotten to a point because of those incremental improvements and building the stickiness of the iOS ecosystem that just the fact that this is an Apple product is immediately going to award it a quarter of this market competing against Huawei, which is huge in China and Samsung, which is the de facto leader in most of the rest of the world. Immediately, a quarter of that market's going to go to Apple. But I think they are also going to expand it. These foldable phones make up less than 2% of global smartphone sales. It's a small segment. But I think the fact that Apple is going to move into it is going to expand that, and they're going to get great margin on this product.

Lou Whiteman: It's interesting because where does Apple go from here? It's I think the interesting question? I think Jason's right that there's a lot of value in just iteration and not just inventing. But if you look at the market share, it almost looks like a World War I trenches where everyone's pretty dug in. If anything, Android is slowly winning people back. Not that it should scare Apple. But one thing that really struck out to me about this whole the announcement and everything, a lot of people were surprised that the phone prices didn't go up more than they did. Apple released all new products across the board. We know the component costs were higher. The memory has been talked about a lot. We were expecting higher prices.

Two possible theories, and either one is, I think, interesting for investors. A, Apple thinks that the component surge is temporary, and so they're just going to ride out the storm except they've warned there's going to be lower margins for now, but they're thinking, we're not going to overextend the consumer. Or option B is, is that as Android phones have evolved, and as these things are basically a commodity now, Apple has less pricing power than we realized that they have plenty of people willing to pay for the upgraded phones, but it's just harder than we realized to really just charge whatever you want for these.

Travis Hoium: If you are shopping for a phone or a computer, it is really easy to see that. I think I've talked about this on the show. I would love to get a new Mac studio. Jumping $2,000 incrementally higher in price to get a new computer is just a nonstarter at this point.

Lou Whiteman: The good news is for Apple investors, is there are plenty of people inside this walled garden that will continue to spend, and I don't think they're in trouble. There is still, after all these years, what's the next big thing? What's the next growth catalyst? What's that? I think Apple is what it is. It's an amazing business with great margins and a great customer base that isn't going away. But I think we still hear. It used to be the Apple car. Then it was the Apple TV. Ironically, guys, with this big phone, maybe this is the Apple TV. Maybe they finally came through. But I do think that as an investor, we just have to accept that this business is great at what it is, and that might be for the foreseeable future, what it is.

Travis Hoium: Jason, the other thing I wanted to bring up is the developer side of things that one of the notes that I heard coming out, and this phone's not going to be out for about another month, but the Beta is not even something that developers can test yet. Apparently, this is not just take your iPhone, your iPad app and just stick it on the new phone. It's a new app, so developers are going to have to do work at the same time. They want to launch this new updated serie, which developers also have to do more work on, are we going to get to this point where people get these new devices, and they just don't work as advertised. I remember that happening in the past with Apple, and it was a black eye on the company for a little while.

Jason Hall: Because that's something that historically Apple has done, even though they're not always never the first mover. They're almost always have been out of the box seamless and great to use. The experience for the user has always been fantastic. That has not been the case, as you said, a couple of times more recently. That is a potential risk, especially for this, which is going to be, this is like a cornerstone product. This is going to be the highest end of its high end product. The fact that you do have really three screens. Apps have to be built differently to be able to operate depending on which mode you're using the phone in. I think what I'm trying to get at is that because the form factor is so different here, there is going to be a learning curve here, but I do think that the people that are buying these are probably diehard Apple users that want this and they're going to be willing to go through a little bit of struggle just to get this phone in their.

Travis Hoium: The fact that they got Netflix on board, I think is a good sign. It will be interesting. I'm happy to see that we have innovation happening in the space, whether it's the Muse app or the new foldable phones. It's exciting to follow tactic in. When we come back, we're going to go on our time machine. You're listening to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing.

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Travis Hoium: Welcome back to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing. We like to have a little fun and maybe test Lou and Jason's memory of the market in this segment. I'm going to call this the time machine. I want you guys to tell me what these companies were doing 10 years ago. Part of the context here is with all the things that are changing, we're really worried about month to month, week to week, quarter to quarter. But sometimes we forget as long-term investors that we should really be thinking about five, 0 years from now, and sometimes those compounding growth that some of these companies have sneaks up when we look back. We get a few questions for you. Jason, have you go first here. Uber Technologies. Been around for a while. It's now become the Kleenex name in ride sharing. Over the past year, they have done 14.8 billion rides. In 2017, they have not been public super long, so that was the last complete data that we had. 2017, how many rides did they complete? 14.8 billion over the past year, what were they doing a decade ago?

Jason Hall: A few million, maybe. It was tiny compared to what it doing.

Travis Hoium: More than 1,000X, 10,000X.

Lou Whiteman: I don't know.

Jason Hall: This is annual?

Travis Hoium: This is annual rise.

Lou Whiteman: I'm going to go with a billion. Maybe four billion?

Travis Hoium: Lou, you are almost exactly right, four billion. The interesting thing you look at this chart, they had consistent growth 2017 through 2019. 2022, it drops down, and then you go basically back to the exact same growth rate that we had in 2017. It's like 2018 mirrors 2020, which then 2019 mirrors 2021. It's fascinating how the pandemic really set this entire industry back and the adoption rate back in almost a straight line. But again, 14.8 billion rides, I think we often forget how ubiquitous that company became as quickly as it did, because it started I think it was 2009. The company was founded. Disney is known for its movies, but it makes its money and its parks. Lou, operating income for Disney's parks over the past year is $10.8 billion. A decade ago, what was that number?

Lou Whiteman: Ten billion now?

Travis Hoium: $10.8 billion over the past year, yes.

Lou Whiteman: Two-thirds of that is just the markup on the lunch. Look, it worked last time, so I'm just going to say four billion.

Jason Hall: Four billion.

Travis Hoium: You guys split the hair. It's basically tripled in the past a little more than tripled. 3.3 billion. The fascinating thing with Disney's business is the movies, the streaming service gets so much attention, ESPN, but it's really the parks that drive the business. That has been a consistent grower outside of that blip that we talked about in 2020 and 2021. But consistently throwing off cash flow. Jason, I think this is you look at a company like Disney. This is it's not going to end anytime soon.

Jason Hall: It was about a decade ago they had their first new opened theme park with Shanghai at that time. Over the next decade, there's probably another one going to open somewhere, but there have been so many expansions of other things they've added. That's not talk about how much they've expanded the ticket prices. They run that business. They use pricing power to control the experience. They do an extraordinary job with that. There's not too many people in the park. They raise the prices to throttle back demand, and it generates incredible operating income when it works.

Travis Hoium: They really have that mastered. I was there earlier this year, and the difference between them and Universal, you could just see that they've been doing this for what is it? Seventy-five years at this point. Let's go to a little bit bigger growth number. This is going to throw off people who have not been following this industry for a while. But Nvidia their data center revenue. Jason, I think this is going to be up your alley. Over the past year, $278 billion. In 2016, how much datacenter revenue was Nvidia generating? 278 billion used to be what?

Jason Hall: It was a few billion because they were selling GPUs for the Cloud. That was a thing. I'm going to say a few billion, and that might be too big. Wow.

Lou Whiteman: One dollar? No. Their total revenue was a few billion in 2016. I'm going to come with 999 million.

Travis Hoium: 2016, their total revenue to Lou's point, and I'm going in fiscal 2016 was $5 billion.

Jason Hall: I was going to say it was like four or five billion.

Travis Hoium: The data center revenue was $338 million. The compound annual growth rate. This is where compound annual growth rates are just crazy to me looking back at some of these. 84% compound annual growth rate, that leads to a total change percentage wise, of 82,000%. Just crazy how much that business has grown.

Jason Hall: I thought it was a little bigger than that by then, but I guess that was still pretty early in GPUs for the Cloud.

Travis Hoium: [OVERLAPPING] They did not pass $1 billion until fiscal 2018. That was mostly calendar 2017. Then it incrementally went up. It was actually flat 2019-2020. It wasn't until 2021 that things really started to pick up there. Just interesting how quickly that business has grown. Let's go to Tesla. Over the past year, they have sold 1.75 million vehicles. Lou, how many vehicles did they sell in 2016?

Lou Whiteman: Under $99,999.

Travis Hoium: Jason.

Jason Hall: The Model S was the best-selling luxury sedan in the world back then. Like just bar-none l.

Travis Hoium: Are we really playing that this is a luxury vehicle game?

Jason Hall: The Model S that was the category that it was in. It was outselling Mercedes and BMW, similar-sticker-price cars. It's like a few thousand a month. It wasn't like, I'm going to go one less than lose answer.

Travis Hoium: Jason, you win. It was 76,230. They didn't cross 100,000 in 2017. The interesting thing, looking back on them, I think people forget this because the stock has moved so much in so many different directions over the past decade. But their growth really happened after the pandemic began. You can almost go back and see, this is why Elon Musk was like, no, we're going to keep making cars because they almost doubled production in 2021. They were up about 30 or 40% in 2022. Again, similar percentage in 2023. That was actually when they peaked was 2023. But that growth really took off with the Model 3 and Model Y, but it wasn't until a few years after 2016.

Jason Hall: That was the key when the price point came down, and the funny thing is that those cars that you can buy today for 40,000 or $50,000 are better. They have better range. They're more reliable. They're faster than the cars that cost 100,000, $120,000 a decade before.

Travis Hoium: I will continue to contend that Teslas are not luxury vehicles, but I may not win that battle with the market. Final question for you guys in this segment, Costco, phenomenal stock, phenomenal returns over almost any time frame that you want to look at. But Jason, they have 81 million paid members today. How many paid members did they have in 2016?

Jason Hall: Fifty million.

Travis Hoium: Lou?

Lou Whiteman: How much now?

Travis Hoium: Eighty-one million today.

Lou Whiteman: Eighty-one, 40.5.

Travis Hoium: Jason is a little bit closer. This is fascinating to look at Costco's results. They're compound in your growth rate only 6% in the number of members. Not a phenomenal member growth is 47.6 million members in 2016. But yet over that decade, over the past decade, their stock has returned almost 500%. It's a little bit of growth from members. It's a little bit of price increases because they have expanded those margins in their stores. I think they picked up their member fee just a little bit in the past couple of years. But a lot of multiple expansion, too. That's played a big role. The stock IPO trades for 45 times trailing earnings. One of the slower growth companies that we've talked about here, but there's lots of different ways to make money in the market.

Jason Hall: I have nothing to add. Charlie Munger said that, and he was on the board at Costco for a long time.

Travis Hoium: Wise thing to say, when we come back, we're going to talk about inflation and where interest rates may go from here. You’re listening to Motley Fool Hidden Gems Investing.

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Travis Hoium: As always, people on the program may have interest in the stocks they talk about and The Motley Fool may have formal recommendations for or against, so don't buy or sell stocks based solely on what you hear. All personal finance content follows the Motley Fool's editorial standards, and it is not approved by advertisers. Advertisements are sponsored content and provided for informational purposes only. To see our full advertising and disclosure, please check out our show notes.

The big piece of news that the market is focused on is interest rates. We have the Fed meeting coming up next week. Mortgage rates are up the 30 years at a higher rate than it's been in almost two decades. Lou, we got some inflation data that didn't seem great. Didn't seem like data that's going to get the Fed to cut rates. The big one that came out this morning is CPI, the Consumer Price Index up 3.4%. This is a big deal? Is this not a big deal? How do you think about interest rates and inflation today?

Lou Whiteman: It definitely worth watching. It's not a reason to change you're investing, but I want to separate out rates and inflation because inflation is basically holding steady. That's not great, and there is a lot of pain out there, but we have seen that the economy can hold up at inflation at this level. I don't think it's any reason to panic. It's just we're watching to make sure it doesn't go higher. Rates, on the other hand, I do think are separate. For all the talk about oil, for all the talk about tariffs, I don't think the rates are moving on inflation. They're moving on the fact that you have less demand for bonds than you do. The supply of bonds.

Basically, this is an AI build-out story. We just have a crowding out of treasuries and other government bonds, and that is causing them to have to pay more. Twenty-five 25 basis points, 50 basis points, nothing the Fed does will wipe out hyperscalar demand for capital. They will pay the higher rates. The Fed really can't control and the treasury can't either, but they're finding that out the hard way. You can't really control what the rates are. That's just going to be what it is. The companies are telling us they can handle that, so we don't have to worry about that as investors. We just need to watch to see if inflation spikes and so far so good there, but if that does happen, that could impact the consumer, which causes trouble down the line.

Travis Hoium: Jason, you and I have been talking about energy stocks for a long time, and one of the reasons that I keep an eye on interest rates in particular is because we've seen what happens with energy, solar, and wind. I think is a great example. But when these interest rates go up, cost of capital goes up, it makes it harder to even build out the data center or lose right. The data center buildup is really driving the economy and GDP growth right now. But if that capital gets more expensive, the hyperscalers are in a different category. They have cash, and they can find cash if they need to. But the Neo Clouds, some of the less capitalized companies are going to maybe run into some real problems if suddenly debt costs are 12, 13, 14, 15%, that's when you start to get worried. How do you think about those interest rates in investing, because it seems like certain companies we shouldn't care about and others we should care a lot?

Jason Hall: That's the way it always is, though. The companies that are on the margins are always going to have marginal pressures that affect them. As an investor, I really don't worry about inflation very much, at least not as an isolated thing. It has to be within the context of all the things that we've talked about. I think, too, we are at a point where, 30 years at some of the highest levels we've seen in a couple of decades. But if you zoom out and look at the interest rate chart over the long term, that's because the last two decades have been extraordinarily cheap money. Money still is, historically, relatively cheap, broadly for companies and for individuals that have good credit and are viewed as safe borrowers, money is still very accessible.

But I think as an investor, what I really try to look for in these periods where we have high inflation, and we have something giant where the money is going to keep flowing to it, like AI infrastructure, that's making things expensive for consumers because it's driving up energy costs, and it's making things like your smartphone more expensive because of the run on memory, for example, those things are affecting regular consumers, and it's putting a macro pinch on the companies that sell to them. I try to look for opportunities in really good companies that are kind of getting the macro pinch. But the underlying thesis is still really good for the long term. That's as an investor, my take is look for opportunities in these situations to buy greatness for the long term and not try to pivot and be too nimble in ways that as individual investors, we have no edge to be able to be more nimble than the big fast money can be.

Travis Hoium: Lou I do think about what you said about how historically, these are not really that high interest rates, but it has been a very long time, and you have to be our age in your 40s, probably, investing for a very long time to remember when interest rates were higher than they are today. This is one of the things that it seems like we're going to eventually run into this where, the market goes, wait a second, we're going to have 6, 7, 8% interest rates. I can't I can't buy stocks at 30, 40, 50 times earnings and expect them to beat the market. Is that something that you worry about that we're just overplayed our hands because it has been low interest rates for so long?

Lou Whiteman: Wouldn't that have already played out, though? We haven't been on zero for a while. I think there was a flushing when we came off zero. I don't know if an incremental 100 basis points higher from here, the businesses that can't support actually paying for money are basically already in the past. We work and, some of those things. I think the worst of that is done.

Travis Hoium: We like to end the show with the stocks on our radar. Jason, you're up first this week. What are you looking at?

Jason Hall: TJX Companies, TJX. The last segment we were talking about that I'm looking for companies that the macro factors aren't great for some of their customers, and it's spooked the market a little bit. The stock’s down a ton. It just reported really, really good results. Comps were up 4%, net income was up 24% in the second quarter. The market freaked out a little bit because traffic was basically flat. If you look at it against, like, the context of most of the industry they're in, traffic was down like 3.5% across the industry, according to the data that we have access to. You have a company that's outperforming its sector that's dealing with some temporary macro things. They could last multiple quarters or even multiple years, but long term, we've seen TJX operate through these environments and be a huge winner. It trades for 24 times earnings. That's as cheap as I've seen it in a very long time. Bart, I think this should be your winner.

Bart Shannon: I used to love the company. Then I was a frequent shopper of TJ Maxx and of Marshall's, and I saw the quality decline, and also saw a slight increase in prices because of the tariffs, and no decrease when they got their $330 million refund. I'm not the biggest supporter at the moment.

Travis Hoium: Tough crowd here, but it does seem like you're right. Jason, to put some numbers to it. The drawdown currently in the stock just over the past week or two is about 25, 26%. That's a pretty big hit for a company that does seem like it's performing pretty well, and there's been a lot of pressure across the entire consumer space. Everybody seems to be facing these pressures.

Jason Hall: There was just a lot of price based on continuing to outperform in ways that are maybe were unreasonable. It's just repriced based on not being a perfect business.

Travis Hoium: Lou, what are you looking at this week?

Lou Whiteman: TJ Maxx is funny. It's like shopping at a flea market. You may find the treasure, but there's, what's the opposite of treasure? Anyway. How about this, Bart? I want to give you something to look at, too. I'm looking at Howmet Aerospace, ticker HWM. They make the metal parts that go into jet turbines and gas turbines for data centers and all other complex machines. Shares are down more than 10% this week after one of their big customers, GE Aerospace, announced plans to buy CPP, which is one of Howmet's rivals. I get why the market's concerned here. This is vertical integration for GE, and over time, it could cause GE to take some of that business they're currently doing with Howmet and bringing it in house, but that will take a lot of time, years, if not decades. I think for every dollar in business, Howmet potentially loses to GE, they have the opportunity to take new business from GE's competitors like Pratt & Whitney, who are currently giving that money to CPP and might not want to give it to what is now GE. I think this weakness is a buying opportunity in a great company, and I'm watching closely. Bart, what do you think about airplane parts?

Bart Shannon: Very sexy. Always sexy. But I have to say this is how I met Howmet. This is the first time I've heard of the company. I'm going to be looking into it.

Travis Hoium: Howmet or TJX companies, Which one's going on your watch list Bart.

Bart Shannon: Howmet all the way.

Jason Hall: For Jason Hall, Lou Whiteman, and Bart Shannon behind the glass, I'm Travis Hoium. Thanks for listening. We'll see you here tomorrow. 

On Friday, I called Meta Platforms' (META +11.43%) new AI personal agent, Muse, a game changer for the company. I didn't expect that would happen as soon as the next trading day.

Meta stock soared 11.4% on Monday after a Wells Fargo analyst raised his price target on the stock from $640 to $796, noting the success of the Muse Spark LLM and the new Muse assistant, and investors also seemed to react to Muse achieving the top spot in Apple's App Store.

Muse was released two weeks ago, but Wall Street suddenly seems to be waking up to its impact, even though it's been clear that the AI agent has been rapidly gaining adoption, with 600,000 downloads in the first five days after its release.

Today, the tailwinds from Meta's surge were strong enough to lift the broader AI sector, with CPU stocks like Arm, Intel, and AMD all soaring on the news, since agentic AI is closely tied to CPU demand. If Meta has the first breakout AI agent, CPU stocks are likely to benefit as AI agent usage drives more demand.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

What it means for MetaWith Monday's gain, Meta is now up 21% since Muse was launched, and the stock could have more room to run.

Investors have long been skeptical of Meta's AI strategy, especially as it's been losing close to $20 billion a year on Reality Labs, but the social media giant could have a big winner on its hands in Muse. The early response, with 600,000 downloads, is not unlike what ChatGPT experienced after its launch, and the reviews for Muse have been glowing as well.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained his commitment to free access, saying, 'We think that this thing is actually going to make you money and save you money, and that is how it's going to pay for itself."

Meta is already entrenched in social media, with roughly half the world as its user base. It's a key player in digital advertising and e-commerce, making it will positioned to monetize an AI agent, and Wall Street now appears to recognize that. Meta is charging $20-$100/month for Muse's premium tiers, but if the company can make Muse a must-have product, there will be plenty of ways to monetize it.

Finally, Meta has the potential to follow in Alphabet's footsteps, which soared after its Gemini LLM proved to be a serious competitor to OpenAI and Anthropic, with the stock essentially doubling in the second half of last year.

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Meta is still a bargainMeta has long traded at a discount relative to its growth rate. There's no simple reason for that, but investors seem to believe that the company isn't diversified beyond advertising, it faces regulatory threats, including the $17 billion settlement related to unsafe content for children, and it's burned a ton of money on AI, leading some investors to question Zuckerberg's instincts after the metaverse flop.

Currently, the stock trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of 25, which is still cheaper than the S&P 500, but the company is expected to grow much faster than the broad-market index. Meta is on track to grow revenue by 26.5% this year to $254.1 billion, and that doesn't include any impact from Muse, which could accelerate its growth in the fourth quarter and into next year.

Even without Muse, Meta stock looks cheap given its consistently strong growth in the core advertising business, but now the company looks poised to be a major player in AI thanks to Muse. If the momentum in Muse adoption continues, Meta could hit a $1,000 a share by the end of the year.

Wells Fargo is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Jeremy Bowman has positions in Advanced Micro Devices, Arm Holdings, Meta Platforms, and Wells Fargo. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Advanced Micro Devices, Alphabet, Arm Holdings, Intel, and Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Comprehensive cross-platform coverage of the U.S. market close on Bloomberg Television, Bloomberg Radio, and YouTube with Romaine Bostick, Bailey Lipschultz, Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec. -------- More on Bloomberg Television and Markets Like this video?

Surging tech shares lifted the Nasdaq composite to a record close, and left AI safety fears in the dust.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Jeff Chiu/AP Meta's new personal AI agent, Muse, gives Mark Zuckerberg another chance to build the kind of technology platform he has chased for years.

Muse jumped to the top of the App Store last week and remained the most downloaded free app on Monday, beating ChatGPT.

If enough people use Muse as their main way to get things done online, developers could flock to the nascent platform, and businesses may have little choice but to engage with it.

Meta surged 11% on Monday, getting the stock within striking distance of a record it hit last summer. Investors appear to be betting the company has found a new way to sit between consumers and the businesses trying to reach them.

This broad idea has been driving Zuckerberg for years.

What are the real-life consequences of AI?

Meta spent tens of billions of dollars trying to build the next major computing platform through virtual reality and, more recently, smart glasses. Part of that ambition came into focus in 2021 when Apple made it harder for Meta to track people across apps and target ads, reminding Zuckerberg how much power platform owners have over companies that depend on them.

Developers invitedMuse offers a different path. Its swift climb up the app charts gives Meta the kind of early consumer momentum that attracts developers.

Last week, the company opened Muse to outside developers through a new connector platform that lets businesses plug their services directly into the AI agent. Those connectors help Muse do useful work on a person's behalf. A travel service can book flights. A calendar app can manage appointments. An email service can send messages.

Developers can create their own Muse connectors and submit them to Meta's agent platform for review. No coincidence: The company describes this in very similar terms to how Apple guards its mobile platform.

"We'll review your connector for functional, security, and legal requirements, and complete end to end testing," Meta wrote on the Muse developer website. "Once approved, users will be able to find your connector in Muse. Editors will review connectors for featured placement."

Adding to the allure for developers: On Monday, Shopify announced support for shopping on Muse through its Shop Pay service, sparking a jump in Shopify stock. Meanwhile, Stripe is providing the payment technology that lets Muse complete purchases across much of the web.

Top of the funnelThe platform strategy is tried and true, but difficult to pull off. If millions of people begin asking Muse to shop, book appointments, compare products, and manage subscriptions, businesses will increasingly want their services available through the agent.

That is how internet platforms become valuable. By controlling the starting point of online activity — the top of the funnel — they can become very powerful and lucrative.

Google Search is one of the most profitable businesses in internet history because it became the starting point for finding information online and taking valuable actions afterward. Apple's App Store became indispensable because developers wanted access to hundreds of millions of iPhone users.

In both cases, businesses adapted because that was where the customers were. Meta hopes Muse can become a similar starting point.

"Being early could be as valuable as being early to the App Store in 2009," tech entrepreneur Greg Isenberg wrote on X. "Every business will need an agent strategy, just like every business needed a mobile strategy."

He thinks Muse connectors could become "the new app listings," with businesses competing for visibility inside AI agents instead of app stores or search results.

In that world, a company's API could become more important than its app because AI agents, not people, would increasingly decide which services to use, he explained.

Amazon blocks, Shopify embracesWhether Meta gets there is far from certain. Amazon has already blocked Muse from parts of its shopping site, showing that some companies may resist handing customer relationships to another tech giant.

That's a stark contrast to Shopify's reaction to Muse. And it shows the potential risk of not engaging with a potential new platform like this.

If millions of users embrace Muse, Amazon could miss out on selling to this large customer base. For instance, Amazon could just as easily block Google Search from its online store, too. But it doesn't because Google is used by billions of consumers to search for products.

"If Instacart embraces agents while Amazon blocks them, the agent will increasingly route demand to Instacart. Customers will be happy, and Amazon will eventually face the dilemma: keep protecting the relationship, or match the better value proposition," Nicolas Bustamante, who works on AI at Microsoft, wrote on X.

Muse also has competitors that could grab this new spot at the top of the funnel. OpenAI, SpaceX, and others are racing to build AI agents that become consumers' default assistants.

Still, Muse may represent Zuckerberg's clearest opportunity yet to build the kind of platform he has been pursuing for years.

If AI agents become the primary way people get things done online, owning a leading agent platform could prove every bit as valuable as owning a mobile operating system or a search engine.

Sign up for the AI Insider newsletter here. Reach out to me via email at [email protected]

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Alistair Barr You're currently following this author! Click to unsubscribe from email alerts.

Alistair Barr is the driving force behind Business Insider's AI Insider franchise, including the AI Insider newsletter. Sign up here. Before that, he was Business Insider's Global Tech Editor and the Big Tech team leader at Bloomberg, following a reporting career at The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Reuters, and MarketWatch. Alistair covers all things Big Tech, along with startups and venture capital. He writes analysis and columns about topics including AI, cloud computing, data centers, semiconductors, online search, e-commerce, EVs, robotics, and autonomous vehicles.

Meta Mark Zuckerberg AI More Big Tech Amazon Stripe App Store Apple

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Meta's Muse AI personal agent tool has only been out for nearly two weeks, and it's topping the app store charts.

The social media giant's Muse app is currently ahead of popular services like OpenAI's ChatGPT, Polymarket and Kashi on Apple's iOS app store for the category of free smartphone programs in the U.S. as of Monday. It's also ahead of rival AI apps like Anthropic's Claude and SpaceXAI's Grok AI, in addition to the Facebook-parent's own Meta AI app.

The Muse app overtook ChatGPT as the leading iOS free app in the U.S. on Friday, and racked up 730,000 downloads over about five days after it launched on Sep. 8, according to the analytics firm Sensor Tower.

Muse's cumulative downloads topped ChatGPT, Claude and Grok during the same post-launch window, Sensor Tower said. The firm noted that the apps had staggered platform releases split between Apple and Google Play, which would impact their totals.

Meta pitched the app as a way for consumers to manage and direct supercharged digital assistants that can perform a number of tasks across the web, like filling out electronic forms and organizing email inboxes. The app, which is powered by Meta's Muse Spark family of AI models, represents a major push by CEO Mark Zuckerberg into the AI agent market, which the freely available OpenClaw tool helped popularize earlier this year among developers and technology enthusiasts.

"I think up to this point most of the agentic use cases have not really been for normal people," Bernstein analyst Stacy Rasgon told CNBC in a "Squawk on the Street" interview on Monday. "Now you've got Meta's Muse and other agents out there that are starting to maybe get more potential for more broad-based adoption."

Read more CNBC tech newsElon Musk talks up AI safety while fighting regulation in wild week of strange alliancesOpenAI's latest AI revelation is a 'serious situation,' Microsoft's Suleyman tells CNBCAnthropic and OpenAI need truly independent safety evaluators, experts say in public letterAI safety debate meets reality at Dreamforce as business leaders say last year's models are enoughThe buzz around Meta was also reflected in the stock, which surged more than 11% on Monday. Wells Fargo lifted its price target on the company's stock to $796, according to multiple reports.

Although people can use the Muse app for free, Meta is also offering monthly subscriptions that will cost $20 or $100, depending on usage. It's a way for Meta to potentially make money off AI agents that isn't centered on the company's core online advertising business.

But Meta's debut of Muse comes amid broader societal concerns around AI's safety and cybersecurity risks that have rocked the tech industry over the past few weeks. Meta also recently agreed to pay roughly $17 billion to settle with a coalition of state attorneys general that had sued the company for misrepresenting alleged harms to children and teenagers caused by apps like Facebook and Instagram.

It's unclear how long the Muse app will remain a hit, considering that other AI services have experienced similar boom times upon their release but failed to remain blockbusters, such as OpenAI's Sora and Meta's Vibes AI video tool, which helped bolster downloads of the Meta AI app when it was first released last September.

"They care about security, I don't know how much they care about privacy," Rasgon said, referring to whether the personal data-hungry Muse app will sting Meta in the long run.

Late Sunday, GeekWire reported that Amazon had blocked access to its site for the Muse bot, citing privacy and security risks.

"We think it's fairly straightforward that third-party applications that offer to make purchases on behalf of customers from other businesses should operate openly and respect service provider decisions about whether or not to participate," an Amazon spokesperson told GeekWire in a statement.

Shopify, however, is working with Meta on Muse access. Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke announced Monday that the e-commerce site was partnering with Muse to allow agentic checkout in its online stores.

WATCH: What Meta's Muse means for AI.

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Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:META) shares surged over 12% Monday, adding more than $200 billion in market value in a single session, according to Benzinga Pro market data.

The company tacked on roughly $207.5 billion in market capitalization intraday, climbing from about $1.695 trillion at the prior close to about $1.902 trillion.

Wells Fargo’s Meta Price Target Boost In a Monday note, Wells Fargo raised its price target for Meta to $796 from $640, maintaining an Overweight rating. The adjustment comes as excitement builds around the upcoming Meta Connect event, where founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to outline the company’s broader product vision. The event will feature a keynote on Wednesday, Sept. 23, followed by a developer-focused session on Thursday, Sept. 24. Meta recently introduced Muse, a personal AI agent designed to assist users with tasks and goals. Rosenblatt’s Bullish Outlook on Meta Rosenblatt Securities maintained its Buy rating on Meta, setting a price target of $886 in a recent note. The firm highlighted Meta’s upcoming product launches, including camera-free smart glasses, code-named Luna, expected this fall. The glasses will feature six microphones for AI interactions. Additionally, Meta has started rolling out parental supervision tools for Threads across Asia Pacific, allowing parents to manage privacy settings and monitor usage. Citigroup also maintained a Buy rating with an $800 price target, citing the Connect event as a near-term catalyst. Technical AnalysisMeta’s RSI stands at 78.35, indicating overbought conditions. The stock trades 22.75% above its 50-day SMA of $608.94 and 19.67% above its 200-day SMA of $624.66, with the 50-day SMA still below the 200-day SMA.

META Stock Price Activity: Meta stock was up 12.27% at $747.46 at the time of publication Monday, according to Benzinga Pro.

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Meta Platforms Inc (NASDAQ:META, XETRA:FB2A, SIX:FB) shares surged 12% to $747.91 in afternoon trading on Monday, putting the stock on track for a strong daily gain, as investors responded to early traction for its new Muse artificial intelligence (AI) assistant and a higher price target from Wells Fargo.

Meta shares opened at $680.27 on Monday, slightly above their previous close of $665.75, before climbing steadily during the session to an intraday high of $749.49.

Wells Fargo raised its price target for Meta to $796 from $640 and maintained its 'overweight' rating, citing early adoption of Muse and momentum from recent AI model launches.

Muse reached No. 1 on Apple's US App Store on September 18, ten days after its September 8 launch, drawing more than 730,000 US downloads over that period, according to Sensor Tower data cited by Yahoo.

The assistant is designed to perform tasks on behalf of users, including research, completing forms and online shopping, making its early adoption an important test of Meta's strategy to build consumer-facing AI agents.

Meta also announced Petal, a new subsea cable connecting the US and France over about 7,000 km that will deliver 1 petabit per second of capacity, twice that of today's most advanced transoceanic cables.

The system is expected to enter service in 2029.

The cable will use two-core fibre technology to increase capacity without a proportional increase in power or physical infrastructure, and will be built with NEC and Sumitomo Electric Industries, with Orange supporting the French landing.

Meta said subsea cables carry about 99% of intercontinental data traffic, making the project part of its broader investment in infrastructure to support rising demand for connectivity and data, including from AI.

However, Amazon blocked Muse from shopping on its website, saying the agent violated its conditions of use and raising concerns about unauthorized access and transparency, while Meta has disputed some of the retailer's claims.

The dispute highlights a broader challenge for AI agents, which need access to third-party websites and services to complete tasks but could face restrictions from companies that control those platforms.

Meanwhile, Meta Connect, the company's annual developer conference, begins on Wednesday, when investors are expected to focus on Muse usage, new AI models and evidence that the technology can support future revenue growth.

The renewed enthusiasm comes as Meta continues to commit heavily to AI, with investors increasingly looking for evidence that its spending can translate into products and services beyond its core advertising business.

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Meta keeps bleeding cash into AI infrastructure and Reality Labs while the market punishes every headline, yet one stubborn investor sees a reason to keep buying shares that most holders are dropping like they're on fire.

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Every time the market punishes Meta for spending, I add more. The $784 million Q2 2026 free cash flow figure scared other holders. It did not scare me, and here is why I keep clicking buy on Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction).

The reason I cannot stop is the one thing that matters at this company: the ad engine is still compounding, and the AI capex the crowd hates is what keeps making it better. On the Q2 call, Mark Zuckerberg said “on a dollar basis, our ads business is reporting faster year over year revenue growth than any other company’s reported ad business.” That is the whole thesis in one sentence.

Three Numbers That Keep My Hand on the Buy Button First, the top line. Q2 2026 revenue landed at $60.80 billion, up 27.96% YoY, with ad impressions up 14% and price per ad up 12%. 3.60 billion daily active people across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads keep showing up. That is the largest attention pool in commercial history, and it is still growing.

Second, quality of the earnings. On a full-year basis Meta runs an 82% gross margin, a 41.44% operating margin, a 30.24% return on equity and a 20.69% return on invested capital. Those are the returns of a toll road.

Third, the balance sheet. Net debt to EBITDA sits at 0.47 and interest coverage is 71.48x. Even after raising $83.66 billion in long-term debt to fund infrastructure, the company can service it out of one good quarter. At a P/E of 24, I am paying a market multiple for a business that returned $26.25 billion in buybacks in 2025 and pays a growing dividend.

Why Meta, Not Alphabet or Snap The obvious counter is Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) at a P/E of about 15. Cheaper, yes. It is also up 39.05% over the past year while Meta is down 14.4%, and Alphabet posted negative $5.85 billion in Q2 2026 free cash flow with buybacks suspended. Google carries litigation risk across Search that Meta does not, and Meta’s 30.24% ROE versus Alphabet’s 35.7% is closer than the valuation gap suggests.

Snap (NYSE:SNAP) is the other social ad name people reach for. Snap grew ad revenue 9% in Q2 2026, runs a negative 8.97% operating margin and a negative 19.46% ROE, and the stock is down 34.48% over one year and 92.6% over five. That is a different business entirely from Meta.

Risk I Am Underwriting The real risk is capital intensity. Meta guided full-year 2026 capex to $130 to $145 billion, up from $72.22 billion in 2025. Reality Labs lost $19.2 billion in 2025 and burned another $4.03 billion operating loss in Q1 2026. Legal charges of $2.40 billion hit Q2, with youth-related trials still scheduled. If the AI buildout produces nothing, the return on that capital will be poor (all that spending also has to be powered and cooled by somebody, which is why we pulled together seven suppliers doing exactly that in a free report).

What has not changed the thesis is the math underneath it. Family of Apps operating cash flow of $115.8 billion in 2025 is what funds this bet, and Zuckerberg’s controlling stake means the person spending the money owns the outcome. Susan Li said the company is demand-constrained on compute, with offers for compute at a significant premium over what Meta paid.

I keep buying because the ad machine funding this experiment is still one of the best businesses on any American exchange, and I get to own it at 24 times earnings while everyone else worries about the bill.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Shares of Meta Platforms (META +9.54%) charged sharply higher Monday morning, gaining as much as 7.6%. As of 11:22 a.m. ET, the stock was still up 7.1%.

The catalyst that sent the social media and artificial intelligence (AI) specialist higher was bullish commentary from Wall Street regarding the company's recently launched AI agent.

Image source: The Motley Fool.

A new revenue stream? Wells Fargo analyst Ken Gawrelski raised its price target on Meta to $796, up from $640, while maintaining an overweight (buy) rating on the shares. That represents potential upside of 20% compared to Friday's closing price.

The analyst made the move ahead of Meta Connect -- the annual two-day event that kicks off on Wednesday -- which the company uses to showcase its latest advancements in AI. Meta will likely highlight the adoption of Muse, the company's personal AI agent that can perform tasks, rather than just answer questions. Meta unveiled Muse earlier this month, with a free version and paid tiers costing $20 and $100 per month, depending on usage.

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Investors will be watching closely to see whether Meta provides usage updates on its latest release and whether that translates into an ongoing revenue stream. The company's focus on direct-to-consumer applications differs from many of its rivals, who focus on enterprise tools made available via their cloud computing services.

Meta's legal troubles have weighed on the stock, as investors assess the long-term implications of the company's recent $18 billion legal settlement.

Even after today's rally, Meta is selling for less than 27 times earnings, an attractive price for a company in the thick of the AI revolution.

Danny Vena, CPA has positions in Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

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META buy

Buy META. The stock jumped on a credible catalyst: Wells Fargo raised its target to $796 ahead of Meta Connect, and Muse is showing early traction with agentic features (email, booking, forms) plus ongoing model upgrades (Muse Spark 1.3). The market is shifting from “AI demo” to “usage metrics,” and META is positioned to win if Muse engagement holds through Connect.

Key Risk: Muse usage fails to convert into paid subscribers and retention, so monetization disappoints at/after Meta Connect.

META options buy (call spread)

Buy a META call spread into Meta Connect (e.g., buy 1-month ATM calls and sell slightly higher strike calls). The setup is a near-term event-driven re-rating: investors will reward any hard numbers on Muse usage, agent success rates, and early monetization signals. The dividend ex-date is already behind the move, so the next driver is product traction.

Key Risk: Meta Connect delivers weak or vague Muse metrics (or technical issues), causing the post-event fade to crush option value.

Meta stock META surged 9% on Monday after Wells Fargo raised its price target on Meta Platforms ahead of the company’s annual Meta Connect event, citing recent model launches and early traction for its Muse personal AI assistant.

Wells Fargo maintained an Overweight rating on Meta and raised its price target to $796 from $640.

The new target implies roughly 19% upside from Meta’s previous close.

Meta Connect is scheduled for September 23-24 and will take place virtually and at Meta’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California.

The annual event focuses on the company’s developments in artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, and smart glasses.

Wells Fargo expects attention at Meta Connect to centre on usage metrics for Muse and Meta’s latest AI models.

Meta launched Muse on September 8 as a personal AI agent designed to perform tasks rather than simply respond to questions.

The company says Muse can send emails, book travel, fill out forms, and continue working after a user closes the application.

The service is powered by Muse Spark, which Meta describes as its most capable model for agentic work.

Muse is being rolled out in the US through iOS, Android, muse.ai and WhatsApp, with support for AI glasses planned.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg described Muse in an X post as a personal agent that understands users’ goals and works continuously to complete tasks on their behalf.

Most of the service’s functionality will remain free, while subscription plans will provide higher usage limits, according to Meta.

Meta has also continued developing its underlying models. Muse Spark 1.3, released earlier this month, includes improved performance across long-running agentic and coding tasks.

The early traction for Muse has also raised questions about the potential financial contribution of consumer AI agents.

Oppenheimer analyst Jason Helfstein estimated that Meta would need around 115 million paying Muse subscribers at $20 per month to generate approximately $27.5 billion to $28 billion in annual AI-agent revenue.

Helfstein was skeptical that Muse would reach that scale, citing challenges around paid conversion, competition and consumer trust.

The contrasting views highlight the focus on usage and monetisation as Meta prepares to showcase Muse at Connect.

Wells Fargo’s higher price target comes as investors await further evidence of how the company’s latest AI products could expand engagement and potentially create new revenue opportunities.

Meta also announced Petal on Monday, describing it as the first subsea cable with petabit capacity to be deployed across an ocean.

The cable will connect the United States and France.

The infrastructure project adds to Meta’s broader investment in connectivity and AI infrastructure ahead of Meta Connect.

The company’s latest announcements come two days before the September 23 event, where Muse is expected to receive significant attention.

Investors will be watching product usage and the development of Meta’s latest AI models as the company expands its consumer AI offering.

Meta also reached its dividend ex-date on Monday, with a $0.525 per-share cash dividend scheduled to be paid on September 28 to shareholders of record as of the close on September 21.

Wells Fargo just handed Meta a dramatically higher price target, and the reasoning behind it points to something bigger than a routine upgrade. Here is why one analyst believes the AI story at Meta is only getting started.

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Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META | META Price Prediction) just got a fresh vote of confidence from Wells Fargo, which raised its price target on Meta Platforms to $796 from $640 and reiterated an Overweight rating.

The firm argues that heading into Meta Connect, product momentum from recent model releases and early traction on the Meta Muse assistant gives the company a genuine AI story to tell.

For long-term investors, the price target raised by Wells Fargo reinforces a bull case that has been quietly rebuilding as Meta stock rallies off its August lows.

Ticker Company Firm Action Old Rating New Rating Old Target New Target META Meta Platforms Wells Fargo Price Target Raised Overweight Overweight $640 $796 Wells Fargo’s Case Wells Fargo’s thesis centers on product momentum following successful model releases and early traction on the Meta Muse assistant. The firm expects investor attention at Meta Connect to zero in on usage statistics for Muse and Meta’s newer models.

That framing aligns with commentary from CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who told analysts on the Q2 call that “we are now at a point where our investments in AI are accelerating every major part of our core business.”

Since Muse Spark was integrated, Meta reported a 60% increase in daily users interacting with the assistant. Wells Fargo analyst Ken Gawrelski pressed management on the same capacity and model strategy questions now underpinning the higher target.

Company Snapshot Meta operates the world’s largest advertising franchise across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, with a market capitalization of roughly $1.7 trillion.

Q2 2026 revenue rose to $60.80 billion, up 27.96% year over year, though diluted EPS of $6.18 missed the $7.22 consensus as costs climbed 55% on $2.40 billion in legal charges and $1.18 billion in severance.

Advertising revenue grew 27%, with ad impressions up 14% and price per ad up 12%. Management guided Q3 revenue to $61 billion to $64 billion and full-year capex to $130 billion to $145 billion.

Why the Move Matters Now Meta stock trades around $715.43, up 31.02% over the past month and 10.4% in the past week, yet still 8.01% below year-ago levels.

That gap reinforces the long-term bull case behind Wells Fargo’s target. Shares change hands at a trailing P/E near 25 and a forward P/E of roughly 20, with the Street consensus target sitting at $755.28 across 47 Buy and 8 Strong Buy ratings versus 7 Holds.

The 2027 consensus EPS estimate of $33.94 gives Wells Fargo’s higher target real earnings support if Muse and business agents scale as guided.

What It Means for Your Portfolio The Wells Fargo call reinforces the bull case for long-term holders even as near-term risks remain.

The near-term risks are real, including a compressed 31% operating margin and free cash flow that fell to $784 million under an 82.1% capex surge.

The next catalyst to watch is Meta Connect, particularly whether it delivers on the Muse usage metrics Wells Fargo expects.

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