Meta reported third-quarter results on Wednesday and put its Muse AI agent at the center of the story. More than 10 million people in the US and Canada have set up Muse accounts since the agent launched on September 8, about 25% of them use the app daily, and shopping is the most popular use case, CEO Mark Zuckerberg told analysts. He said he expects Muse to eventually serve billions of people and that Meta is deliberately not charging up front in order to build a Muse network first.

The quarter itself beat on the top line: revenue rose 26% to $64.6 billion, ahead of the roughly $63.4 billion expected, and Meta forecast fourth-quarter revenue of $73 billion to $76 billion. Net income was $9.86 billion and earnings per share $3.83, well below expectations, after a $9.89 billion charge tied to the August multi-state settlement; without it, EPS would have been $7.40. Free cash flow turned negative at -$2.12 billion, versus +$10.63 billion a year earlier.

To fund the build-out without diluting Zuckerberg's control, Meta will create a new class of non-voting Class C shares in January 2027, effectively a two-for-one split, usable for acquisitions and talent. It also raised the low end of its 2026 capital-spending forecast from $130 billion to $135 billion, keeping the top end at $145 billion. Shares rose more than 4% in extended trading.