Meta’s agent costs up to $445 a year per active user, while the average Meta user worldwide brings the company just $70.

This is Morgan Stanley’s estimate for Muse, an agent that books and buys on a person’s behalf.

For now there are few users, and all the computing costs for the agent come to about $1.2bn a year. For a $250bn advertising business, that is small change.

But if the agent grows, a billion users at the same price would cost $445bn a year. That is more than Meta’s entire revenue.

Interestingly, Morgan Stanley still keeps Meta as a top pick:

1. Few can afford such costs to launch an agent right now, so it is a moat.
2. They will earn more from advertising.
3. After 2028, businesses will start paying Meta for purchases made by the agent.