Meta AI tops the charts, Amazon blocks it, NYSE opens up — Thu 24 Sep

Good morning. Five stories on one consumer AI app may look like a lot, and that is rather the point: agents are arriving on the phone, at the checkout, and now in the argument about what onchain finance is for. Further down, the banks are building rails of their own.

💎 Muse passes ChatGPT on the App Store
💎 Zuckerberg puts Muse at the centre of Meta
💎 Amazon shuts the agent out of its store
💎 UK banks settle between themselves with tokenised deposits
💎 NYSE opens tokenised stocks to 44 million accounts

🎧 BlackRock says AI and onchain finance converge. Kaupr Weekly Episode 12 asks how far finance has already moved onchain.

— Morten

Muse is the most downloaded free iOS app in the US, ahead of ChatGPT. Sensor Tower counted 730,000 downloads in the five days after the 8 September launch, and more than 2.5 million by Monday. Meta sells subscriptions at $20 and $100 a month alongside the free version.

Why it matters: Meta is testing whether an agent can make money outside advertising. Bernstein's Stacy Rasgon says most agentic products so far have not been built for ordinary consumers.

Source: Meta's Muse AI agent downloads are surging. Here's how it compares to ChatGPT, Grok and Claude — CNBC

At Connect on Wednesday, Zuckerberg said Muse will grow into a personal superintelligence. The agent gets a video-chat avatar, runs on Meta's AI glasses, operates a Mac and gets its own email address. Meta says it will earn money by taking a small fee on the transactions Muse carries out.

Why it matters: Muse can buy from the Shopify catalogue through Shop Pay, Lync and PayPal, with Best Buy, Walmart and Sephora added as partners. Meta says it received more than 1,500 developer applications for connectors in under a week.

Source: Everything new coming to Meta's AI agent Muse — TechCrunchThank you for reading Kaupr Daily. If you find this briefing useful, please share it with a colleague or friend who should be following Nordic and European digital-finance news more closely.

Kaupr Today has its own home — read, listen, watch and explore at today.kaupr.io.

Wishing you a great Thursday — and welcome back tomorrow morning for the next edition of Kaupr Daily.

Best regards Morten Myrstad Founder & Editor

Amazon blocked Muse on Sunday night, saying an unauthorised agent breaches its terms of use and that Meta never asked for access. Shopify opened its stores to the agent the next day. In August, an appeals court ruled in a similar Perplexity case that the user, not the AI company, is the one accessing the site.

Why it matters: Amazon runs its own shopping agent, Buy for Me, and brands are opted in by default. Meta says logins stay hidden and that purchases use one-time card numbers.

Source: Meta's Muse AI is exploding in popularity—and already drawing heated backlash from another tech giant — Fortune

Users are handing Muse the tasks they keep putting off. One traveller had it chase an airline credit and got $250 back. Another had it wait on hold and call when a person picked up. Others turn saved recipes into cookbooks or hunt down cocktail bars. A directory, Use of Muse, collects the examples.

Why it matters: The everyday cases are refunds, customer service and shopping, which is where an agent touches money directly. Mashable notes that agents carry security risks and advises caution before handing over accounts and payment details.

Source: 10 ways to use Meta's Muse AI app, from flight credits to outfit ideas — Mashable

Meta says Muse will run on its AI glasses in "the coming months". The agent is activated by saying its name, works in the background and reports back when it is finished. Meta's examples are booking appointments, checking flight prices, tracking down items, guiding workouts and logging meals.

Why it matters: Engadget questions how much the glasses add, since an agent already works unsupervised once a task is given. What changes is that the task can be given hands-free.

Source: Meta's Muse AI agent is coming to its AI glasses — Engadget

We ran this yesterday, and we are running it again: X last night was dominated by little else. BlackRock makes three arguments. LLMs and blockchains rest on the same foundations, since one turns language into tokens and the other money and assets. Agentic commerce needs always-on rails for high-frequency, low-value payments. And compute itself could become a large investable asset class as contracts standardise.

Why it matters: The world's largest asset manager is now arguing in public that AI and onchain finance converge, and that stablecoins are the rails. That argument carries further than the report itself.

Source: BlackRock sees AI as a new driver for digital assets — Kaupr

Lloyds, NatWest and Barclays completed two mortgage transactions using tokenised deposits, the first interbank transfers of their kind. A group including HSBC ran a simulated marketplace purchase where programmable deposits held the buyer's money until delivery. The trials sit under UK Finance's Great British Tokenised Deposit project.

Why it matters: Tokenised deposits keep the legal status of ordinary deposits and stay on the bank's balance sheet. The Bank of England has said it would rather banks innovate this way than with stablecoins.

Source: UK banks make first interbank transactions using tokenised deposits — Reuters

Willingness to use stablecoins rises from 36% to 56% when they come with bank-level fraud protection and deposit insurance, according to a Visa survey of 2,192 US adults. For 64%, trust depends on the provider rather than the technology. Banks and card networks were the most trusted providers.

Why it matters: More than half of respondents had never heard of stablecoins, and some assumed they move in price like bitcoin. The survey was conducted between 24 February and 2 March.

Source: Stablecoin adoption intent rises from 36% to 56% with bank-level protections, Visa says — The Block

NYSE Group and Blockchain.com signed a memorandum of understanding to give Blockchain.com's users access to tokenised US stocks and ETFs on the exchange's planned digital ATS. ICE Data Services will distribute Blockchain.com's crypto market data, and Blockchain.com will add NYSE and ICE feeds to its app.

Why it matters: The platform has not launched, the deal needs regulatory approval, and neither company gave a date or terms.

Source: NYSE Taps Blockchain.com to Reach Crypto Investors With Tokenized Stocks — Decrypt

🎧 More relevant than ever — Kaupr Weekly Episode 12: Is finance finally going onchain?

Banks, clearing houses and asset managers are wiring themselves into onchain markets well before the volume arrives. Eleven minutes on DTCC, DNB, Arc, the SEC's five-year test, Centiglobe and NBX.

Episode also available on Spotify · Apple Podcasts

Thank you for reading Kaupr Daily. If you find this briefing useful, please share it with a colleague or friend who should be following Nordic and European digital-finance news more closely.

Kaupr Today has its own home — read, listen, watch and explore at today.kaupr.io.

Wishing you a great Thursday — and welcome back tomorrow morning for the next edition of Kaupr Daily.

Best regards Morten Myrstad Founder & Editor