To The Moon

The disruption story brewing in the market for the last three years really took hold when $Meta Platforms, Inc.(META)$ ( ▼ 3.34% ) Muse was released on September 8, 2026, and rapidly went to #1 in the app store.

People were posting pictures of Muse buying clothes, re-booking flights, making calls to restaurants, and many other phenomenal use cases. I called it AI’s Mass Market Moment, and I think that’s true.

I also think others will follow. Moats don’t last for long in AI. But we can see how we may interact with technology in the future, and it may not be through the apps we use today.

This is creating both opportunities and risks for the companies we’re investing in. $Amazon.com(AMZN)$ ( ▲ 0.12% ) has taken a hostile approach, blocking Muse from shopping on its site. I explained in this video why the real reason Amazon did that is that bots don’t watch ads, and ads are what make Amazon’s retail business profitable. Without ads, even the biggest e-commerce company in the world would be losing money.

But companies like $PayPal(PYPL)$ ( ▲ 4.64% ), $Wal-Mart(WMT)$ ( ▲ 0.36% ), $Expedia(EXPE)$ ( ▲ 0.93% ), and others have jumped on the opportunity to work with Muse. So, is this an opportunity or a threat? And to whom?

I think three factors don’t get enough attention in this discussion, and they relate to aggregation of demand, how aggregators deal with supply, and how Muse fits into that picture.

1. Muse needs access to supply.

   1. This opens the question of who supply is and how does that supply surface itself to Muse.

2. If Muse is going to take a cut of each transaction, it needs a counterparty to work with. It can’t just unilaterally take 3%…

3. Muse needs someone to talk to if it has questions or if something goes wrong.

On #1, Muse currently just goes to the web and, using your credentials, can buy items or perform actions. But it needs access for this to work. And many aggregators (like Amazon) don’t have an incentive (for now) to grant access to their supply.

Aggregators have already pulled supply together in a single place. That aggregated supply could be disaggregated, but is Muse or another AI going to do the work to become the aggregator?

More on that in a moment.

On #2, Mark Zuckerberg says Muse will make money by taking a cut of each transaction Muse performs, but from whom? If Muse finds Asymmetric Investing and someone signs up with their Link profile, I don’t have to give Meta any money! Neither does anyone else right now. And for this model to work, someone needs to be the counterparty for Meta to charge.

I’m not suggesting Meta won’t be able to pull supply together, but it may not be as easy as people think right now. And it may be easier to make agreements with aggregators or large suppliers than with individual points of supply.

And #3, Muse is going to need a counterparty to be responsible for delivering on what Muse is asking for. Muse can write an email, but Gmail needs to send it. Ordering a bike on Marketplace and paying for it with Muse is great, but what if that person doesn’t exist? What if the ride you called was just Tom in his Honda, and he decided not to come pick you up?

There’s a reason hotels like Booking and Expedia. They bring demand and they deal with the BS. They deal with complaints and cancellations. Who deals with the BS if Muse disaggregates the aggregators?

So, let’s go through how I think about competitive positions today, and I’m going to frame this as aggregators serving a certain kind of supply. All aggregators are pulling demand together, but I think supply’s ability to move is what matters in an agentic world.

The Aggregator of Aggregators

Example: $Expedia(EXPE)$

Should it be any surprise that Expedia was one of the first to partner up with Muse?

Expedia is technically an aggregator, but it’s a website that pulls together data from other websites.

It’s an aggregator of aggregators.

And in an agentic world, why wouldn’t Hilton or Mariot just allow Muse to access their inventory?

The same goes for airlines.

And restaurant reservations.

Does Expedia need to exist in an agentic world?

If it does, I don’t think it has a lot of power.

Airbnb, on the other hand, has relationships with more individual homeowners (or it did until Airbnb’s started being managed by companies). I think it would be harder for homeowners to go it alone and make their supply available to Muse than it would be for Hilton.

Aggregator of Aggregators Position: Weak

The Aggregator For Physical Supply

Example: $Uber(UBER)$

The next group is companies that aggregate the supply of something physical with lots and lots of suppliers. Uber and Lyft are perfect examples with millions of drivers providing supply, but DoorDash or Toast (not quite an aggregator) are other examples of companies that work with many suppliers to serve demand.

These are companies where the supply they’re bringing together could surface itself to AI agents, but there are fixed costs that need to be covered, and every underutilized minute is lost revenue and profitability.

Even if Tom in a Honda can make himself known to Muse on an individual basis, he has an incentive to stay utilized 100% of the time. If Muse keeps him busy 50% of the time and has no take rate, that’s still worse than Uber keeping him busy 100% of the time with a 75% take rate. And is he trying to price rides on his own?

This utilization point is why I built the autonomous vehicle economic model below. It shows just how important utilization is for autonomous vehicles, and that goes for rides, restaurants, retailers, and anything in the physical world.

Autonomous Vehicle Model | Asymmetric Investing

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Then there’s the PITA that the aggregator handles, like insurance, pricing, cancellation, technology, and billing. Not to mention setting up an account!

Aggregators in the physical world may lose a small amount of pricing power if Muse becomes a customer acquisition tool, but I think they still have an immense amount of value. They’re a single point of contact that handles lining up logistics in the physical world and could work with all agents.

It’s even possible that aggregators spend less on advertising or customer acquisition if Muse is bringing the customers.

Here’s how this could work:

“Muse, call me an Uber, Lyft, or Waymo. Prioritize speed.”

“Hey, Siri, get me a ride from one of my ride-sharing apps. I want an autonomous vehicle.”

The real world is becoming a moat in an agentic world. I think the aggregators of something physical are going to be fine.

Aggregator of Physical Supply: Strong

Aggregator For Data

Examples: $Zillow(Z)$ $Netflix(NFLX)$

If data is what you’re pulling together as an aggregator, the position may be a little more tenuous.

I’m going to use Zillow and Netflix as examples, which are hopefully guides for how I’m currently thinking about this. But this is going to be a case-by-case basis with a lot of nuance.

Zillow is connecting buyers and renters with real-world demand, but what they’re really doing is pulling together all of the data about supply and putting it in one place. And if an AI could look at all supply sources, an individual could theoretically sell a home on their own.

Heck, they could even ask Muse to build a website, upload pictures, price the home, and draft sale documents.

In theory, Google is already trying to do this and already has several billion users, but Muse may make it easier.

Or what about Netflix? They’re aggregating TV demand, but in an agentic world, any piece of content could be put online with a micro-price, and an agent could access it.

“Find Season 2 of Game of Thrones.”

Muse: It’s available for $2 per episode.

“Buy it and start playing Episode 1.”

For digital aggregators, I think the power comes down to what they’re doing that a supplier can’t do for themselves.

Zillow’s pitch to realtors is that it can pull together more data, create better walk-throughs, give agents tools, and provide customers. Is that a platform worth sticking with if a brokerage company could just surface homes to Muse?

And again, would it just make more sense for AI agents to just search the aggregator rather than a thousand agent sites?

For digital content from Netflix or YouTube, I think the same holds true.

Aggregator for Data: Safe, but might be lower margin.

The Case For Aggregators

Here’s the thing I keep coming back to with AI agents and personal assistants.

They’re going to need to interact with someone. And that someone may change from who it is today (like the Expedia example), but in many cases, it will simply surface the same apps we interact with today because they’re a single point of contact between suppliers and the AI agents.

Muse also needs account access for a lot of these products. Small detail.

Ohh, and there’s this.

Will aggregators lose their position of power if there are dozens of different agents working for people?

Or is there 1 AI Personal Assistant to Rule Them All?

What if Muse has 1 billion users?

And Android’s AI agent has 2 billion users?

And Apple Siri is used by 500 million people?

And there’s another startup with 200 million users?

And another 10 startups with 100 million users?

Is Tom in his Honda going to make himself available to a dozen agent apps?

Or is he just going to work for Uber?

Is Tanya down the street going to take pictures of her house, list it, and hope all of the agents find the website she makes?

Or is she just going to put her home on Zillow (maybe thru an agent)?

Maybe agents make some aggregators more powerful? Wouldn’t that be a shock to the market that thinks AI is a new paradigm?

And maybe Aggregation Theory goes from owning demand being the source of power to owning supply being the source of power.

It’s a return to the 1980s when Walmart rose to dominance by having everything at a low price.

At the end of the day, I don’t think AI agents disrupt all of the aggregators and there will be opportunities for investors to own the ones left standing.

Markets are always moving - and sometimes, the best move is knowing what works for you.

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