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Meta’s AI side hustle
Meta is doing the very 2026 thing of asking: what if the robot that saves you money also takes a cut? During an interview with Jim Cramer, Meta President Dina Powell McCormick said the company is exploring transaction fees and paid subscriptions as ways to monetize Muse, its AI agent.
The logic is pretty simple, in a slightly unnerving Silicon Valley way: if Muse helps a user avoid a bad purchase, streamline operations, or otherwise keep more cash in the bank, Meta may charge a fee tied to the value it created. And if people keep using it, subscription pricing is on the table too.
Not just chat, but do-things AI
Muse isn’t being positioned as another chatbot that politely nods and gives you a bullet list. Meta says it can actually act on a user’s behalf, with approval required for sensitive moves like purchases. That’s a much bigger deal for investors because “agentic” AI can be closer to software-as-a-service than toy demo territory.
Meta also launched Muse for small businesses, pitching it as a back-office helper for cash flow, inventory, website design, and customer communications. In other words, it wants to be the digital employee that never asks for PTO.
Why the partner parade matters
Meta is plugging Muse into outside platforms, including:
- Shopify for commerce and inventory flows
- Salesforce’s Slack for workplace communication
- Walmart for shopping and customer interaction use cases
That kind of integration is the tell. Meta isn’t just chasing consumer hype; it’s trying to make Muse sticky enough that small businesses actually build workflows around it. If that works, the product could become less of a headline and more of a recurring revenue machine.
Big picture: Meta’s pitch is no longer “look at our cool AI.” It’s “look at our AI, and maybe pay us when it helps you make or save money.” That’s a much more investor-friendly sentence.