Meta’s New Stock Class Will Fund AI as Muse Passes 10 Million Users

Meta used its 21 October 2026 earnings call to make two points that belong in the same story. It wants a new class of non-voting stock so it can keep spending on a very large AI buildout without giving up founder control. And Muse, its personal AI agent, already has more than 10 million users in the US and Canada, with shopping as the most common thing people do. This is not a stock tip. It is a product signal: agentic shopping is happening at consumer scale, and the company behind it is arranging new capital to run it.

What Meta announced

• New stock — a non-voting class, issued as a dividend to existing shareholders, for capital raising, pay, and acquisitions. Voting power of Class A and Class B stays put.
• Timing — reports describe one new share for each share already held, with a market effect like a 2-for-1 split and an effective date of 19 January 2027.
• Muse scale — more than 10 million people in the US and Canada set up a Muse agent in about six weeks. Meta said it was number one in the App Store on most days.
• Shopping — the top use. More than a quarter of people using Muse shop through it, with an average purchase above $200.
• Money model — free for most people, a fee on commerce paid by businesses, and a paid tier for heavier model use.

Why a new class of stock

Chief financial officer Susan Li said on the call that Meta created the new class so it has a publicly traded non-voting stock it can use for capital raising, employee compensation, acquisitions, and other corporate purposes, while preserving the voting power of existing Class A and Class B shareholders. She tied that to keeping a founder-led structure and to having more ways to fund demand driven by AI. TechCrunch reported the remarks the same day: https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/21/meta-wants-to-pay-for-its-broad-ai-buildout-with-a-newly-created-class-of-stock/

Coverage from the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg describes the shares as Class C. Holders of existing stock would receive one Class C share for each share they already own. Meta expects that to affect the Class A price the way a two-for-one split would, without changing Mark Zuckerberg’s voting control. The Financial Times noted he already controls about 61% of the votes through super-voting shares. The dividend is reported to take effect on 19 January 2027.

The quarter that came with the announcement was large. The Wall Street Journal reported record revenue of about $64.6 billion. TechCrunch put the year-over-year revenue increase at 26%, and said costs and expenses rose about 68%. Reality Labs, the glasses and VR unit, is still losing money. Reporting with the earnings said those losses are expected to come in between $18 billion and $19 billion, below the 2025 level. The stock class is the funding tool. The spending is the AI infrastructure, the models, and products such as Muse.

Muse at 10 million, and why shopping leads

Zuckerberg said that in about a month and a half, more than 10 million people in the US and Canada had set up Muse personal agents, and that growth was still strong. About 25% of people who set it up use it on a given day. He said that daily rate was more than twice where Threads started, and higher than where Meta believes other AI apps started. TechCrunch’s write-up of the call: https://techcrunch.com/2026/10/21/meta-says-muse-has-over-10m-users-with-shopping-a-top-activity/

The use that stood out is commerce. Shopping is the most common activity. More than a quarter of people using Muse shop with it, and the average purchase is over $200. Zuckerberg said Plaid had not seen connector activity like this on any other service, and that Meta had to ask Stripe to raise credit limits in the first week because volumes were higher than expected. After shopping, people connect Muse to email and calendar. For a plain-language tour of what Muse is, and how it differs from Muse Image and Meta AI, see What is Meta Muse?.

He also described the trust layer Meta is selling to users: a Muse Secure VM for data protection, and a coming Muse Confidential VM that he said would keep even Meta from seeing the content. Treat that as Meta’s claim on the call, not as an independent audit. If you sell to these users, your own privacy policy and payment records still have to stand on their own.

How Meta plans to make Muse pay

Zuckerberg said Muse now has product-market fit, and the next phase is operational: scale the product, grow revenue, and cut compute cost. On compute, Meta is building capacity to serve more than a billion people over the next few years. He said Muse is expensive to run today, and that the company expects to improve cost efficiency by more than 10 times within a year so it can be profitable once revenue is at scale.

• Free for most people — the base agent stays free.
• Commerce fee — Meta intends to keep a percentage of purchases, paid by businesses, not by a checkout tax the shopper sees as a Muse subscription.
• Paid power use — the most advanced models, or extra token use, move to a subscription.
• Higher revenue per person — he said an American family of app users is worth several hundred dollars a year to Meta today, and that he expects Muse to go higher.

He also sketched a Muse network: your agent working with a friend’s or a family member’s agent, and, when you want to buy, talking to that business’s agent instead of only opening a website. That is the line sellers should remember. A shopper may never land on your homepage. Their agent may ask your agent for price, stock, and delivery, then pay.

What this means if you sell online

A consumer agent with 10 million setups and a $200 average order is past the demo stage in the US and Canada. It is still not a channel you can assume in India. The 10 million figure Zuckerberg gave is US and Canada. The earlier Muse agent launch was US-first. Check the app before you brief a team in Ahmedabad or Dubai on “we are live on Muse.”

1. Make your catalogue, price, stock, and shipping readable by an agent: clean product data, a real API, and a payment path that can confirm an order.
2. Decide what an outside agent is allowed to do. Browse is not the same as place an order, issue a refund, or change an address.
3. Keep the system of record yours. Meta’s fee on facilitated checkout is their revenue model. Your orders, customers, and margins should still land in your store and CRM.
4. Plan a human handoff. A $200 purchase will produce “where is my order?” and “that is the wrong size.”

That is a different job from posting on Instagram. It is closer to AI agent development: tools, permissions, logs, and a person when the agent should stop. If you are comparing a chat widget with something that can actually place an order, start with AI agents vs chatbots.

What this does not change

The new shares do not give your company access to Muse, and they do not lower the cost of building your own agent. They tell you Meta expects the AI bill to stay large enough that it wants a funding tool which does not dilute voting control. Compute, models, and shopping volume are the reason. Your decision is still whether customers in your market will buy through an agent, and whether that agent should be Meta’s or one you operate.

Teams that already own the product data usually get further with a private agent on the website, app, or WhatsApp Business API than by waiting for a US consumer app to open a seller programme. Altron Technologies designs those systems for catalogues, CRMs, and approval rules. See AI development in Ahmedabad or talk to us if you want a pilot scoped to one catalogue and one payment flow.

FAQ

Did Meta split its stock?

Not as a simple split of the shares that exist today. Meta said it will create a new non-voting class and distribute it as a dividend. Reporting says holders get one new share per current share, which Meta expects to affect the Class A price like a 2-for-1 split, effective 19 January 2027. Voting rights of current Class A and Class B shares stay the same.

How many people use Meta Muse?

On the 21 October 2026 call, Zuckerberg said more than 10 million people in the US and Canada had set up Muse personal agents in about a month and a half. About a quarter of them use it on a given day. That is Meta’s figure, not an audited user count.

What are people using Muse for?

Shopping is the most common use. More than a quarter of people using Muse shop with it, and the average purchase is over $200. Personal productivity, including email and calendar, is the next pattern he described.

Will Muse be free?

Meta’s plan, as described on the call, is free for most people, a cut of commerce paid by businesses, and a subscription when someone wants the most advanced models or more usage. Profit depends on cutting the compute cost, which Zuckerberg said they expect to improve by more than 10 times within a year.

Should an Indian business build on Muse or build its own agent?

Use Muse where it is actually available and where the buyer already is. Do not treat the US and Canada user count as an India launch. For orders, CRM updates, and policies you control, a custom agent on your stack is the system you can promise to customers. This article is a reading of public earnings coverage, not an official Meta status page or investment advice.