Meta has set rupee-denominated subscription prices for its rapidly growing AI agent, Muse, ahead of its official launch in India, signalling its entry into one of the world’s largest digital markets.

The service is priced at ₹1,799 for its Power tier and ₹8,999 for the Maximum tier, with marginally higher charges for subscriptions purchased through Google Play and Apple’s billing systems, The Hindu has found. The pricing, which is broadly in line with U.S. rates, has not been reported previously.

It remains unclear whether these prices are final or could be revised when Muse officially launches in India. Meta did not respond to The Hindu’s queries.

AI agents such as Muse and its rival Instinct have gained considerable traction as users increasingly entrust autonomous systems with online tasks. Muse, which allows users to interact with it on WhatsApp, clocked more than 10 million downloads within two months of its launch.

Its applications range from handling customer-service interactions and filling out online forms to planning travel and booking flight tickets.

Muse’s integration with WhatsApp could give it a significant distribution advantage in India, where the messaging platform has a massive user base. The service currently offers a free tier with generous usage limits in the U.S., Canada, Japan and Singapore.

Its San Francisco-based competitor, Instinct, which also operates through WhatsApp, is available globally without a paid subscription tier.

Limited access in India

Although Muse currently places Indian users on a waitlist, users can register through a VPN connected to one of its supported markets. Registered accounts continue to work in India even after users stop routing their internet connections through those countries.

Despite the absence of Muse from Indian app marketplaces, its web and WhatsApp interfaces are accessible in the country. Indian-issued cards can also be used to purchase subscriptions, provided their billing territory is set to a supported market.

However, the service’s functionality in India remains restricted. It does not accept user authorisation to make card payments on their behalf, as this capability depends on integrations with payment processors that do not operate in India.

An executive at a major Indian payment gateway provider, which has worked on agentic payments, denied last month that the company was working with Muse’s developers to integrate such capabilities.

Agents spread online

While personal AI agents such as Muse have not triggered the same level of cybersecurity concerns as unreleased frontier models such as Anthropic’s Mythos, they raise a different set of regulatory and technological questions.

Officials have expressed concerns that advanced frontier models could potentially expose vulnerabilities and trigger data breaches across government and corporate networks. AI agents, meanwhile, throw up a different question: should autonomous digital agents be treated as human users when accessing online services?

The issue could have significant implications for Indian websites that rely on legacy bot-detection technologies such as CAPTCHAs. Agents such as Muse and Instinct can be configured to solve these tests with relative ease.