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Apple can sell every iPhone and still lose money. That's the central thesis of a new analyst note from Bank of America. The reason is Meta's AI agent Muse, which has topped the US App Store charts for days. The bank fears that such agents could redirect users from searching to paying, bypassing Apple.
Bank of America analyst Wamsi Mohan sent a note to investors on Tuesday. It revolves around one question: Who will profit in the future from people searching for, selecting, and buying things on their iPhones? Currently, a large portion of this happens through the App Store, Apple Pay, and Apple's other services.
Excerpts from the note show that Mohan sees precisely this chain as threatened by AI agents. He believes Apple is not yet equipped to handle this with Siri AI. The stock fell on Tuesday, but Mohan maintains his buy recommendation.
Key Takeaways
- Bank of America sees AI agents like Meta's Muse as a risk to Apple's services revenue: Device sales remain, but revenue from search, referral and purchase completion could migrate.
- According to the note, Siri AI lacks permanently running background tasks, broad support for actions in external apps, and its own payment method for agents.
- The bank sees the bottleneck not in the hardware, but in the speed: Apple releases major software versions once a year.
- The rating remains "Buy", with a price target of $370.
- Neither Muse nor Siri AI is available in German-speaking countries.
The thesis behind the analyst note
Mohan's argument doesn't focus on the iPhone itself, but on what happens on it. "The risk for Apple is that it can keep every device sale and still lose out on product search, referrals, and initiating transactions," he writes. If an agent selects the retailer, the revenue from that referral goes to the agent's provider—and no longer to the operating system, search engine, or App Store.
Muse serves as an example in the note of how quickly this can happen. Mohan points to the agent's early trading partners, including Shopify with its payment service Shop Pay, Expedia, and PayPal. This allows a purchase to be completed within the agent, from the initial search to payment.
What Muse can do
Meta unveiled Muse on September 8th, describing it as a personal AI agent running in its own virtual machine. The agent opens a browser, fills out forms, sends emails, books trips, and makes purchases – even when the app is closed. Sensitive actions require user approval, and a separate control agent also runs on the same machine.
AI agents on the iPhone existed before; OpenClaw launched its agent as an app in June. Muse, however, is reaching a mass audience: since September 18th, the app has been ranked number 1 among free apps in the US App Store, just ten days after its launch.
It's impossible to know for sure how many people have already installed Muse. The three market research firms that TechCrunch analyzed arrived at significantly different results for the week ending September 24th:
| Market researchers | Estimated downloads |
|---|---|
| Apptopia | 4.3 million, of which 2.6 million are on iOS |
| Sensor Tower | more than 3.4 million |
| Appfigures | approximately 2.3 million, roughly half iOS and half Android. |
The difference between the highest and lowest estimates is roughly two million downloads. All three agree that Muse reached several million users within just over two weeks.
Where Siri AI is lagging behind, according to the note
Apple released Siri AI on September 14th with iOS 27, six days after the launch of Muse. According to Mohan, Siri AI lacks three things in comparison: tasks that run continuously in the background, broad support for actions in third-party apps, and its own payment method through which an agent can process purchases.
The bank believes the problem isn't a lack of computing power; a current iPhone significantly exceeds the requirements of an agent like Muse. Mohan sees the bottleneck in the pace: Apple releases major software versions only once a year, while agents are improving daily. He demands that Apple's teams for services, chips, payments, and data privacy collaborate more closely and quickly with Siri AI.
Mohan does, however, attribute two advantages to Apple: a large, loyal user base and the trust many people place in Apple regarding the handling of their data. For these users, Siri AI is the default setting on their devices.
Buy rating remains, price target at $370
Mohan maintains his "Buy" rating and price target of $370. He had only lowered the target after the unveiling of the new iPhones in September because the prices of the Pro models were below his expectations and were putting pressure on margins. In May, the bank had raised its price target to $380.
| Time | Bank of America's target price |
|---|---|
| September 2025 | $260 |
| October 2025 | $320 |
| May 2026 | $380 |
| September 2026 | $370 |
A competition without German-speaking users
Muse is currently only available in the US and Canada, as confirmed by Meta in their recent announcement about the agent. Meta did not provide a release date for other countries.
The situation is similar on Apple's side. Siri AI hasn't launched on iPhones in the EU, with Apple citing the DMA (Data Market Access) as the reason. Switzerland is an exception; Siri AI is running on iPhones there. Furthermore, German isn't among the languages Apple announced for October – those listed are French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Siri AI thus joins a longer list of Apple features that are missing in the EU. The competition described in the note is not currently taking place on either side in German-speaking countries.
Why the cash register is more important than the assistant
I consider the speed argument the strongest part of the note. Siri AI has only just been released, and according to Apple's cycle, it will be a year before the next major version. In contrast, Meta announced new partners and features at its developer conference just two weeks after the launch of Muse.
I'm less convinced that the shift is a done deal. Muse itself is distributed via the App Store, and Apple is reportedly working on its own rules for AI agents in the App Store. Whoever controls the platform on which an agent runs will still have a say in who profits from the referral.
For users in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, nothing will change for the time being. The crucial factor will be which of the two offers arrives here first – and in which language.
Would you allow an AI agent to pay on your behalf – or should the final click before the purchase remain with you? Let us know in the comments where you draw the line.
