&imwidth=800&imheight=600&format=webp&quality=medium "Meta is pushing its AI agent into small businesses and hired a database veteran to run it")
Meta built its fortune on consumer attention. It is now trying to build a second one on selling AI to businesses, and this week it showed how.
The company said it is expanding its Muse AI agent to small businesses, and launched a Meta Enterprise Platform to sell its AI models, agents and infrastructure to companies. To lead it, Meta hired Chirantan 'CJ' Desai, the former chief executive of the database company MongoDB, as Chief Enterprise Platform Officer reporting to Mark Zuckerberg.
What Muse Now Does
The consumer version of Muse launched earlier in September and, by Meta's account, briefly topped the US and Canada app charts ahead of ChatGPT. The business version extends it into the tools small companies actually run on.
Meta is adding connectors to a wide list, including Shopify, Slack, Dropbox, Asana, Canva, Figma, Intuit QuickBooks, Notion, Stripe and Zoom. The pitch is an agent that can help an owner run the business and find customers — reaching into storefront, accounting, scheduling and communication tools rather than answering questions in isolation.
Why Meta Wants This
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The logic is about revenue that does not depend on advertising.
Meta's business has rested overwhelmingly on ads. Selling AI tools and infrastructure to companies is a different, potentially large revenue line — the kind of enterprise business that Microsoft, Google and Amazon already have and Meta largely does not. Hiring an enterprise-software veteran rather than promoting from within is a signal that Meta knows selling to businesses is a different discipline from winning consumers, and is buying that expertise.
The Small-Business Angle Is Deliberate
Aiming at small businesses first, rather than large enterprises, is a considered choice.
Small businesses are numerous, underserved by expensive enterprise software, and often run by owners with no IT staff — exactly the users for whom an agent that just plugs into Shopify and QuickBooks and does the work is most compelling. They are also a natural extension of the small advertisers who already form a huge part of Meta's customer base. Meta is selling AI to people it already reaches.
The Reasons For Caution
The ambition is clear; the results are not yet in, and a few doubts are fair.
Topping an app chart on launch measures curiosity, not lasting use, and consumer download rankings say little about whether businesses will pay and stay. The enterprise market is also crowded and sticky — Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Salesforce are entrenched, and switching business tools is painful. Meta is a late entrant to a field where relationships and trust, not just product, decide winners, and its consumer-privacy reputation is a real headwind in selling to companies handling sensitive data.
Hiring a serious enterprise leader addresses some of that, but a platform announced is not a business built.
What To Watch
Whether small businesses actually adopt Muse and keep using it beyond the initial curiosity. Whether the enterprise platform wins meaningful customers against entrenched rivals. And whether Meta can overcome the trust gap that comes with asking businesses to route their operations through its AI, given its history with consumer data.
