Meta's Muse Passes 10M US Downloads in 40 Days

Meta's AI companion app Muse reached 10 million US downloads within 40 days of its September debut, according to Sensor Tower data published by TechCrunch on October 20, 2026; only 11 other apps have ever hit that mark so quickly, and the most recent was Meta's own Threads in July 2023 ¹. The pace is far ahead of other AI assistants, which Sensor Tower says managed 3.7 million (ChatGPT), 500,000 (Grok) and 200,000 (Claude) US downloads in their first 40 days ¹.

The details matter more than the headline number. Muse is live only in the US and Canada, and 10.2 million of its 10.9 million total installs come from the US ¹. US daily active users passed 2.5 million for the first time on October 16, up 15% week over week, and retention is above the AI-app average: 30% of new US users were still active after seven days and 23% after fourteen, against 19% and 16% for rival AI apps ¹.

Meta is also paying for that growth. Sensor Tower estimates that Muse took 39% of Meta's total ad spend in October, up from 23% in September, and that it ranked 21st among US brands by ad impressions this month, up from 73rd ¹. In other words, much of the curve is bought, and the open question is how retention holds once the campaign spend slows. The app has held No. 1 on the US App Store every day since launch except October 19, when Kick briefly took the top spot, and it has led Google Play over the past 30 days ¹.

Also today

• OpenAI began rolling out Locked Chats on October 20, letting ChatGPT users hide specific conversations behind a four-digit PIN or Face ID/Touch ID on most plans, though not ChatGPT for Healthcare ².
• Court records obtained by NPR and covered by TechCrunch on October 20 allege that TikTok staff repeatedly warned executives about child safety risks; TikTok says the claims are cherry-picked and points to more than 50 teen safety settings ³.
• Apple's Volume Purchasing for subscriptions is due to launch on October 22, with multiseat purchases switched on by default in App Store Connect, according to a developer blog; we could not confirm the date on Apple's own news page unconfirmed ⁴.

On the charts

These are day-over-day moves on the October 20 US top free charts, the newest snapshot in our data.

• Capital One Mobile jumped from No. 46 to No. 1 on iOS and climbed 57 places to No. 28 on Google Play. We found no public announcement explaining the spike.
• Muse from Meta sits at No. 3 on iOS in our snapshot and No. 1 on Google Play; our iOS position differs from TechCrunch's report, most likely because the snapshots were taken at different times.
• Kick fell from No. 10 to No. 108 on iOS, a quick fade after its brief run at the top on October 19 ¹.
• Trump Accounts: Official App, published by the US Treasury, entered the iOS chart at No. 50.
• Microsoft Authenticator gained 136 places to No. 24, leading a cluster of work apps, including Teams, Outlook and Okta Verify, that also entered the top 200.

Full lists: iOS top free and Android top free.

What developers are talking about

Where did the iOS jobs go? A post on r/iOSProgramming from October 20 asks why Apple keeps growing while iOS hiring shrinks and native skills seem to count for less ⁵. It cites companies moving back to native and the recent closure of a well-known course business, and the 46 comments split between blaming AI-assisted coding and blaming a general hiring slowdown.

The redesigned Play Console. An r/androiddev developer complained on October 20 that the new Play Console removed app pinning, offers only two sort orders, and has no way to hide abandoned apps, so old titles keep raising permanent policy-issue counts on the dashboard ⁶. Their worry is practical: a constant warning badge makes it easier to miss a real problem.

A classic first-launch trap. Another October 20 post walks through why Google Sign-In worked in a sideloaded APK but failed in the Play Store build: Play App Signing re-signs releases, so the OAuth client also needs the Play signing certificate's SHA-1, not just the upload key's ⁷.