On September 8, 2026, Meta launched Muse, a personal AI agent that does things rather than just answering questions. It runs as its own mobile app and inside WhatsApp, and Meta describes it as handling email, calendars, payments, dining and shopping. The shopping part is what makes it new: Muse can browse stores, fill in forms and complete a purchase on your behalf.
Two weeks later, the plumbing caught up with the promise. On September 21, Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke announced that Shopify was partnering with Muse to enable agentic checkout with Shop Pay across all Shopify stores — switched on by default for eligible merchants. The day before, Amazon had gone the opposite direction, blocking Muse from shopping on Amazon.com. So the landscape as of late September 2026 is clear: Muse can buy from Shopify-powered stores and a growing list of large retailers, but not from Amazon. Sensor Tower estimated the app had passed 3.4 million downloads by September 25, so this is moving from novelty to mainstream quickly. Here is how to use it without losing control of your spending.
Step 1: Check availability and install Muse
Muse runs in its own app and inside WhatsApp, and is currently available in the US, with shoppers in the US and Canada reported as the audience, who must be 18 or older. Download the Muse app from your phone's app store, or look for it inside WhatsApp where Meta has integrated it. If you are outside the supported regions, you will need to wait — Meta has said more partnerships and markets are coming, but has not published a timetable.
Step 2: Set up your identity and a payment method
Create your account and verify that you meet the age requirement. Then add a payment method before you shop, because Muse needs something to pay with when you approve a purchase. At launch, Muse checked out with Link by Stripe: it keeps your credentials in a secure vault away from the AI model, and at payment time Stripe issues a one-time card number scoped to that single purchase. Since September 21–22, 2026, Shop Pay has been added as a wallet option on Shopify stores. Choose whichever wallet you trust, and review the wallet's own terms — the agent is only as safe as the payment rails underneath it.
Step 3: Tell Muse what you want, conversationally
Shopping with Muse starts as a conversation, not a search box. Describe what you want the way you would to a knowledgeable friend: the product, the occasion, your budget, sizes or specifications, and anything you want to avoid. Muse matches your prompt against product catalogues — including Shopify's entire catalog, which Meta says the agent could access from launch — and returns options. The more specific you are about constraints ("under $80", "machine washable", "ships to Chicago"), the less back-and-forth you will need. Shopify's VP of Product Rohit Mishra has noted that AI agents can use more context than human shoppers to find products faster — give it that context.
Step 4: Review the agent's picks like a sceptic
This is the most important step. Before approving anything, check four things yourself:
- The exact product: Is it the right model, size, colour and variant? Agents can misread listings.
- The total price: Product price plus shipping, taxes and any fees. Compare it with the merchant's own site if the amount looks off.
- The seller: On a Shopify store, confirm the store looks legitimate — real contact details, a returns policy, reviews.
- The return policy: An agent-placed order that goes wrong is still your support ticket. Know how returns work before you buy, not after.
Step 5: Approve the purchase — and only the purchase
Muse asks for your approval before it buys. Read the confirmation screen carefully: it should show the final total and the payment method being charged. Approve that specific purchase only. Do not grant standing permission to buy without asking unless you fully understand what that enables — the convenience of hands-free reordering is real, but so is the risk of an agent misinterpreting "order more coffee" as an expensive subscription.
"We are partnering deeply with Muse to enable agentic checkout with Shop Pay on all Shopify stores, offering people an easy and delightful way to shop and check out with Muse." — Tobi Lütke, CEO of Shopify
Step 6: Track the order through the merchant
Once Muse completes the purchase, your relationship is with the merchant, not the agent. Save the order confirmation and tracking number from the retailer's own emails or site. If something arrives damaged, late or wrong, contact the merchant's support directly — they hold the order record. Keep a note of which purchases Muse made for you, so that a month later you can distinguish agent orders from your own in your statements.
- Start small. Let Muse handle a low-stakes purchase first — a book, household supplies — before trusting it with anything expensive.
- Set a mental budget per session. Tell Muse your price ceiling up front, in the conversation, so it filters accordingly.
- Know the Amazon boundary. Amazon blocked Muse around September 20, 2026, so don't expect the agent to price-match or order there. If you want Amazon's price, buy there yourself.
- Watch for the retailers Meta names. At its Connect event on September 23, Meta named Walmart, Best Buy, Gap, Sephora, Ulta and Wayfair among the retailers being connected to the agent — expect coverage to widen beyond Shopify stores.
- Review statements monthly. One-time card numbers make fraud harder, but mistakes are still possible. A quick monthly scan of agent purchases catches duplicates and errors early.
- Remember the data question. Meta says Muse does not share your conversations or the data in your secure machine with its advertising systems. That is Meta's own account of its design; if targeted-advertising separation matters to you, it is worth reading the current privacy terms yourself rather than taking any summary on faith.
Troubleshooting
Muse can't find the product I want. Be more specific about brand, model or specifications, or ask it to search a particular retailer. Coverage is still growing — the product may simply not be in any catalogue Muse can reach yet.
The price Muse quotes differs from the store's site. Trust the merchant's site as the source of truth, and ask Muse to re-check. Do not approve a purchase until the numbers match.
A purchase went through that I didn't intend. Contact the merchant immediately to cancel or return, following their standard policy. Then review your approval settings in Muse and your wallet to make sure future purchases always require explicit confirmation.
Muse is not available in my country. Availability is currently US-focused with Canada reported. There is no published expansion timetable; the app itself will tell you when your region is supported.
The bottom line
Agentic shopping is no longer a demo — with Shop Pay live on Shopify stores since late September 2026, an AI agent can genuinely complete a purchase for you. The technology is impressive, but the discipline is old-fashioned: specify what you want, verify what it found, approve only what you mean, and track the order yourself. Do that, and Muse becomes a genuinely useful shopping assistant rather than an expensive experiment.
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