AI Summary
5 min readIn the first week after its launch, Meta’s new app Muse hit number one in every major app store, and Meta’s stock added hundreds of billions of dollars in market value. But the reaction from other big tech companies was far from welcoming. Amazon immediately blocked Muse from crawling its website, and the episode’s hosts — Travis Hoey, Lou Whiteman, and Tyler Crow — spend the conversation trying to separate signal from noise in what they call a “frenemies” moment for the tech ecosystem.
What Muse is and why it matters
Muse is an AI assistant that can browse the web, shop, and perform tasks across multiple sites on a user’s behalf. The hosts describe it as the biggest new app introduction since ChatGPT, but they are careful to say that does not mean it will be the lasting winner. Lou Whiteman points out that the history of AI is littered with apps that went from zero to huge revenue in weeks and then became irrelevant. “Anyone who tells you they know who the winner is is just trying to sell something,” he says. The hosts agree that the early popularity of Muse is real, but they caution investors against reading too much into a single week of downloads.
Walled gardens and the return of bundling
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:09) **Meta's Muse Launch and the Walled Garden Response** - The hosts introduce Meta's new AI app Muse and discuss the immediate competitive reactions from big tech.
- 2 (02:10) **Will AI Agents Change How We Shop?** - The panel debates whether Muse-style agents threaten the advertising-based business models of Amazon and Meta.
- 3 (05:00) **Hype Cycles and the Slow Burn Reality** - The hosts caution against overreacting to Muse's early popularity by recalling past AI fads.
- 4 (08:55) **Muse Partners vs. Walled Gardens** - The discussion shifts to companies like Shopify, PayPal, and Expedia that have partnered with Muse, versus Amazon's adversarial stance.
- 5 (13:00) **Meta's Stock Jump and the Middleman Threat** - Lou pushes back on skepticism about Meta's 9% stock gain and explains why all middlemen are at risk.
- 6 (15:16) **Hidden Gems: B2B Agentic AI Over Consumer AI** - Tyler explains why he's more bullish on niche B2B applications than on consumer AI shopping agents.
- 7 (17:02) **AAR Corp as an Agentic AI Play** - Tyler highlights a specific hidden gem stock that is integrating AI into its enterprise software.
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Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Muse has driven Meta Platforms to a nearly $2 trillion valuation and has captured the market’s attention. But how will Meta make money from Muse and who will the other winners in the industry be? Plus, we discuss the competition and whether Amazon sees this as an existential threat.
Travis Hoium, Lou Whiteman, and Tyler Crowe discuss:
- Muse v Amazon
- How Muse Will Make Money
- Shopify’s Bet
- Expedia on Muse
- Who Wins an Agentic Future?
Companies discussed: Expedia (EXPE), Meta Platforms (META), Alphabet (GOOG).
Host: Travis Hoium
Guests: Lou Whiteman, Tyler Crowe
Engineer: Dan Boyd
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