Meta (META.US) Muse sparks "AI-disrupted trading," financial, insurance, and travel stocks collectively tumble

According to reports from Zhihui Finance APP, Meta Platforms (META.US)'s newly launched personal AI agent, Muse, is sparking a new wave of "AI disruption trading" on Wall Street. On Tuesday, the stocks of major U.S. banks, insurance companies, and online travel platforms generally declined, as investors began to worry that companies which have long benefited from consumers’ reluctance to compare prices or switch providers may come under pressure as AI agents actively compare prices, book services, and even handle customer service on behalf of consumers.

As a result, the S&P 500 Financials Index fell nearly 2% on Tuesday, closing at its lowest level since July, while the broader S&P 500 Index was little changed. Among individual stocks, JPMorgan Chase (JPM.US) and Wells Fargo (WFC.US) both fell over 3%, while Morgan Stanley (MS.US) dropped 2.88%. Insurance company Allstate (ALL.US) plunged 5.5%, and Charles Schwab (SCHW.US) dropped more than 6%.

This sell-off was not limited to the financial sector. Online travel platform Booking Holdings (BKNG.US) fell 2.55% on Tuesday; fitness chain Planet Fitness (PLNT.US) plummeted 9.5%. In European markets, the telecom sector became the worst-performing industry in the STOXX Europe 600 Index, with France's Orange and the UK's BT Group each down about 4%.

Market concerns over these companies intensified just as Meta’s Muse rapidly gained traction. Muse recently topped Apple's U.S. App Store chart and can connect with third-party services like Gmail and OpenTable to perform a series of digital tasks on behalf of users.

Muse’s rapid rise also drove Meta’s share price up 11% on Monday. Compared to traditional chatbots, an important change with AI agents is that they do not only answer user queries but also "execute tasks" for users. This means that in the future, consumers could directly have AI seek the cheapest insurance, compare telecom packages, book hotels and flights, or even handle complex customer service communications.

Goldman Sachs’ trading division noted in a report that as AI assistants like Muse and Instinct continuously improve their capabilities in price comparison, travel booking, and customer service interactions, industries relying on recurring billing, pricing mechanisms, and supplementary fees may face increasing pressure.

Rhys Williams, chief strategist at Wayve Capital Management, stated that Muse "undoubtedly poses a negative impact on such companies." While AI agents are more of a novelty at this stage, he expects that within two years, AI agents may become quite commonplace.

Goldman Sachs pointed out that if AI agents allow consumers to switch service providers more easily and at lower cost, industries such as telecoms, insurance, and utilities are especially worth watching.

Goldman Sachs’ portfolio of "consumer inertia" stocks potentially exposed to AI disruption covers multiple industries, including telecom operators AT&T (T.US) and T-Mobile US (TMUS.US), insurance companies Allstate and Progressive (PGR.US), streaming firms Netflix (NFLX.US) and Paramount Skydance (PSKY.US), as well as online travel platforms Expedia (EXPE.US) and Booking Holdings. This portfolio dropped 2.6% on Tuesday, the biggest one-day decline since February, with a cumulative decline of over 7% in the past six trading days.

The market’s real concern is not that AI will simply replace an application, but that AI agents could change the way consumers make purchase decisions. In the past, many business models actually benefited from the "friction costs" in the transaction process. For example, consumers may opt for auto-renewal because it’s too much trouble to compare insurance prices, continue paying for their existing telecom package due to the hassle of switching, or habitually use the same travel site for booking hotels and flights. But if AI agents can automatically complete price comparisons, negotiations, cancellations, and provider switching, consumers' inertia to maintain existing services could be greatly diminished.

Citrini Research believes that as consumer-facing AI agents become more widespread, the market may begin to re-examine companies that have long benefited from "transaction friction." Business strategies that once worked due to consumer behavioral habits may gradually lose effectiveness in the age of AI agents. The firm notes that consumer-grade AI agents have actually existed for a while, but Muse may become a key inflection point, "not necessarily because of its technical prowess, but because of its reach."

Meanwhile, the changes brought on by AI agents do not mean transaction activity itself will disappear, but rather that the entry point for internet transactions may shift. Bloomberg Industry Research analysts Mandeep Singh and William Tong point out that personal AI agents may allow some consumers to bypass established platforms such as Uber (UBER.US). In the future, Muse and Instinct may play roles akin to “toll booths” for online transactions, earning income from transactions completed via AI applications.

In other words, if in the future consumers no longer open multiple apps to search for goods and services, but instead directly instruct the AI to "find me the cheapest insurance," "book a restaurant with available seating tonight," or "find the best-value hotel," then the platforms that own the entry point to AI agents could gain stronger transaction distribution capabilities.

This also explains why the recent surge in popularity of Muse has, on one hand, driven Meta to be favored by the market, while on the other hand, placed pressure on multiple sectors including finance, insurance, telecoms, and travel.

Tuesday’s market movements also reminded investors of a round of sell-offs in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) sector earlier this year. At that time, Anthropic launched AI agent tools like Claude Cowork, sparking concerns over potential impacts on traditional software business models.

Now, similar trading logic is spreading from enterprise software to the consumer sector. Unlike previous discussions primarily focused on whether AI could boost enterprise productivity, the new question raised by Muse is: If AI can make choices and execute transactions directly for consumers, which companies that used to profit from consumer habits, switching costs, and information asymmetry may see that revenue impacted?

Muse is still in its early stages of development, and its actual user retention, task completion ability, and future commercial scale remain to be validated. However, the collective fluctuations across financial, insurance, travel, and telecoms sectors on Tuesday show that Wall Street is already attempting to reassess the long-term implications of widespread AI agent adoption for the consumer internet and traditional service industries.