# Meta's Mark Zuckerberg says Muse AI will pay for itself with a cut

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[News](https://realalpha.app/news/) · Sources

By [Rushabh Sheth](https://realalpha.app/news/authors/rushabh-sheth/) Oct. 23, 2026, 8:47 a.m. ET

Mark Zuckerberg, who runs Meta, said Meta expects its new AI agent, Muse, to pay for itself. An agent is AI that keeps working on a task by itself. He said so on the podcast Sources, in an episode posted Sept. 8.

For most people this is about what AI costs them. Zuckerberg said Muse will offer a very large amount of free use. Anyone running a small business with it could be affected by how Meta earns money on the other end.

He said the free start is about 100 million tokens a week, plus a virtual machine, which he called "a lot of computer." Tokens are the units AI uses to measure how much work it does. Zuckerberg expects Meta to eventually take a very small cut of each transaction Muse helps create. He said that cut may come from the businesses involved, not the person using it.

He put the bet this way at 26:27. "we think that this thing is actually going to make you money and save you money."

The story in the news is from [Inc.com](https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/meta-is-making-more-money-than-ever-its-not-enough-for-mark-zuckerbergs-ai-ambitions/91424597), headlined "Meta Is Making More Money Than Ever. It's Not Enough for Mark Zuckerberg's AI Ambitions." It looks at how much Meta earns today and how that compares with what Zuckerberg wants to build in AI.

Meta sells the ad systems Muse can connect to, so it has a stake in people using it. Zuckerberg said the pay model is what he expects over time, and not a done deal. He also said agents sharing anonymized lessons across the fleet is mostly not in this release.

Watch the 5 minutes where he explains how Muse would pay for itself. [24:48](https://realalpha.app/v/Lx8lrn-cytc/?t=1488)

## Sources

- The moment: [Mark Zuckerberg on how Meta's Muse AI agent will make people money](https://realalpha.app/s/meta-expects-muse-to-fund-free-access-through-transactions/?t=1587), Sources, Sept. 8, 2026, from 24:48 to 29:40
- The story: [Meta Is Making More Money Than Ever. It’s Not Enough for Mark Zuckerberg’s AI Ambitions](https://www.inc.com/jason-aten/meta-is-making-more-money-than-ever-its-not-enough-for-mark-zuckerbergs-ai-ambitions/91424597), Inc.com, Oct. 23, 2026

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