Meta's Muse Spark sent its AI app soaring up the App Store rankings

• Meta's release of its Muse Spark AI model has sent downloads of its AI app soaring.
• Muse Spark is the first model released by Meta Superintelligence Labs.
• Meta has spent billions leading up to this moment.

This is exactly the spark Mark Zuckerberg was hoping for.

According to Sensor Tower's estimates, Meta AI reached an all-time high in daily web visitors in the US. Meta's iOS AI app saw roughly 46,000 downloads, an 87% day-over-day increase in downloads on the US Apple App Store.

As of Thursday evening, Meta's AI assistant and glasses app is No. 6 among the most-downloaded free apps, a major improvement from its average rank of 65 in the previous month.

The market intelligence firm said the surge went beyond the US.

"The excitement surrounding Meta AI's new AI Model, Muse Spark, wasn't limited to the US as downloads of the app on iOS in Canada, the UK, France and Germany soared 51%, 32%, 27% and 25% day-over-day, respectively," Sensor Tower wrote in a report.

Muse Spark is the first AI model released by Meta Superintelligence Labs. Meta invested billions in its AI buildout, including a $14 billion investment in Scale AI, which led it to poach Scale AI's cofounder, Alexandr Wang. Top Wall Street analysts were also pleased, which sent Meta's shares higher.

"Muse Spark is the first step on our scaling ladder and the first product of a ground-up overhaul of our AI efforts," Meta said in a release.

Abe Yousef, senior insights analyst at Sensor Tower, told Business Insider that, before Thursday, Meta's AI app hadn't cracked the top 10 of the US Apple App Store in more than 90 days. Its highest ever ranking, No. 2, came on April 30, 2025, around the time of its launch.

Meta's surge demonstrates how AI companies are increasingly using viral moments to make a dent in the consumer generative AI market, which is dominated by OpenAI's ChatGPT. On Wednesday, OpenAI said ChatGPT has 900 million weekly users.

Anthropic's Claude, one of OpenAI's chief rivals, briefly stole ChatGPT's US Apple App Store crown on the heels of an outpouring of public support following the Pentagon's decision to effectively blacklist Anthropic.

Overall, AI continues to dominate the App Store. Of the top 6 most-downloaded free apps, four are AI-related.

Meta is 6th, Google Gemini is 5th, and Anthropic's Claude is 3rd. ChatGPT lost its crown again and is in 2nd, though this time it's behind Augusta National's The Masters Tournament App, home of exclusive coverage of golf's first major. The first round in the quest for the famed Green Jacket began on Thursday.