Meta Platforms used its annual Connect developer event on September 23 to lay out an ecosystem strategy built around its AI agent Muse, and Wall Street repriced the company within hours. A JPMorgan analyst team led by Doug Anmuth raised its Meta price target from $820 to $920, arguing that Muse has the potential to become the most widely used consumer AI application since ChatGPT — the OpenAI chatbot that has served as the benchmark for mainstream consumer AI adoption since its late-2022 debut.

The thesis rests on Muse moving beyond conversation into execution. Meta plans voice-based real-time interaction, delegated tasks such as scheduling and hands-free activation through a word on its smart glasses — a capability Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated on stage by controlling a calendar. The app already ranks No. 1 on Apple's App Store.

Commerce serves as the monetization engine. Meta is wiring Muse into Walmart, Sephora, Best Buy, and Gap so the agent completes purchases outright, with Meta collecting a commission on agent-driven sales — a transaction-based revenue stream sitting alongside the advertising business that has long anchored the company. Amazon, by contrast, has blocked Muse from finishing purchases on its own site.

The market reaction was split. META rallied more than 9% on the announcement yet traded down 2.3% in New York pre-market on September 24. Morgan Stanley held its $775 price target, calling the new hardware a meaningful improvement but a potential 2027 catalyst rather than a near-term one — a timeline consistent with the spring 2027 shipping window for the VR glasses.

$1,299 VR Glasses, No Headset

The hardware centerpiece was Meta VR Glasses, priced at $1,299.99 — the company's first attempt at delivering virtual reality in a pair of glasses rather than a full headset. The frames weigh roughly 100 grams because a cable links them to a compute puck that clips onto a pocket or bag, letting the puck handle processing. Meta pitches the device as a private cinema, a multi-monitor workstation, and a game console, controlled by voice, eye tracking, and hand gestures instead of controllers. Battery life tops out near three hours of media playback, and shipping begins in spring 2027.

In his own post on the reveal, Zuckerberg described the glasses as "private cinema, a workstation with multiple monitors, and a game console in a pair of high-res glasses" — "really a glimpse of the future."

The launch follows a bruising stretch for Meta's VR business: in March, the company reversed its decision to shut down Horizon Worlds, its social VR platform, on Quest headsets just one day after announcing it. Competitive pressure is visible as well — Snap's shares fell nearly 10% in June after it unveiled $2,195 augmented-reality glasses, a price point Meta's $1,299.99 frames sit roughly $900 below.

Muse Charm Ships in December

Zuckerberg saved the most consumer-facing product for the end: Muse Charm, a keychain-sized device that gives users direct access to their Muse agent. The agent itself launched on September 8, handling tasks such as booking appointments and sending emails on the Muse Spark model family. According to Engadget, Meta has so far built only a handful of Charm prototypes; the company plans to ship it in December and has not disclosed a price.

The wider Ray-Ban lineup expands alongside it. Ray-Ban Meta Audio drops the camera entirely, weighs 43 grams, starts at $349, offers up to 12 hours of battery life, and ships on October 13. Ray-Ban Meta Gen 3 starts at $449 and adds a six-microphone array plus Aviator styles. Meta also announced a collaboration with Blackpink singer Lisa and an ivory version of its Kylie Jenner edition.

The lineup completes Zuckerberg's pivot: the executive said the company will de-emphasize the metaverse for now — a notable turn for a company that rebranded itself around metaverse ambitions in 2021 — folding former metaverse hardware investment into the AI-agent stack instead.

December Charm Debut as the Test

Taken together, the three announcements describe one machine: Muse as the interface, the glasses and the Charm as access points, and retail partnerships as the revenue rail. The strategy shifts the bottleneck from software to compute — an ecosystem of always-on personal agents needs dense, power-hungry AI infrastructure, the same demand curve that runs through cloud names like Oracle (ORCL) and data-center operators such as Iris Energy (IREN). Frontier-hardware peers like Rocket Lab (RKLB) sit adjacent to the same capital cycle.

The near-term catalyst is concrete: whether buyers want a dedicated agent device gets tested when the Charm ships in December, ahead of the glasses' spring 2027 debut.