PayPal partners with Meta to power purchases through Muse AI agents

PayPal ↘ 0.72% announced on Tuesday a partnership with Meta ↗ 1.02% that will allow its customers to shop and check out using Meta's Muse personal AI agents across PayPal's worldwide merchant network. Shares of PayPal surged as much as 4.8% in morning trading following the news.seekingalpha

The collaboration places PayPal at the center of the growing agentic commerce space, where AI systems execute transactions autonomously on behalf of users. PayPal shared the announcement on X, writing that it was "excited to partner with Meta to enable PayPal customers to seamlessly shop and check out using their Muse personal AI agents across PayPal merchants worldwide".ndtvprofit

How Muse Works with PayPal

Meta's Muse, which launched on Sept. 8, is designed to execute tasks and translate long-term objectives into actionable plans rather than merely answering questions. The agent runs on Muse Spark, which Meta describes as its most advanced model for handling real-world autonomous tasks. Users can interact with Muse through a standalone app or directly within WhatsApp.ndtvprofit

Muse can perform a range of actions including sending emails, booking travel, filling out forms, and making purchases. For more involved tasks, the agent can continue working in the background after the user exits the app. The platform can also make purchases using Link by Stripe, with eligible transactions offering protections including coverage against lost or damaged items and no-fee returns.ndtvprofit

A Crowded Field for AI Commerce

PayPal is not alone in racing to secure distribution through AI agents. Shopify ↘ 3.66% separately confirmed Tuesday that its Shop Pay service will also be embedded into Meta's Muse platform, underscoring the competitive scramble among payments providers to integrate with AI shopping tools.investing

For PayPal, the Meta deal reinforces a broader strategy of embedding its checkout infrastructure across AI-powered platforms. According to Investing.com, the company had previously struck similar integrations with other major technology partners in the AI space.investing

Market Reaction and Broader Context

Meta's shares have surged more than 20% since Muse's launch on Sept. 8, according to NDTV Profit. A recent JPMorgan ↘ 0.73% research note said Muse has the potential to challenge ChatGPT's consumer-scale reach, with early adoption driven by a clear product-market fit, a free tier encouraging experimentation, and Meta's vast built-in distribution network.ndtvprofit

The broader tech-focused rally triggered a rotation out of financial services stocks on Tuesday. Charles Schwab The Charles Schwab Corporation ↘ 0.85% fell 6.7%, while Morgan Stanley ↘ 0.89% declined 3.5% and Bank of America ↘ 0.36% dropped 3.4%.investing