Zuckerberg
The shares have risen more than 20% since Meta launched Muse on Sept. 8, adding more than $200 billion to the company's market capitalization. Getty Images

Meta's new Muse AI assistant has become the center of a new technology trade, with heavy activity in Meta options spilling into chip stocks and the broader market as the Nasdaq reached a fresh intraday record Tuesday.

Interest in Meta accelerated Monday as traders responded to early demand for Muse, which the company launched Sept. 8. Trading in Meta options reached about 4.5 times the 30-day average, with nearly $3.9 billion in total premium changing hands, CNBC reported, citing Cboe LiveVol and SpotGamma data.

More than twice as many calls were likely bought as puts, while seven of the 10 largest options trades were either bullish or neutral. More than $1.3 billion in call premium was likely initiated by buyers, compared with about $1.1 billion associated with call selling, according to SpotGamma data.

The most actively traded contracts included zero-day-to-expiry calls with strike prices between $720 and $745 that finished Monday in the money. Traders also showed heavy interest in $775 and $800 calls expiring in mid-October.

"The inflows in options are huge," SpotGamma founder Brent Kochuba told CNBC. "It seems like AI hype around their Muse."

Muse's early download figures have also drawn attention from Wall Street analysts. The app recorded 2.8 million downloads during its first 12 days, including 1.8 million in the U.S. and Canada, according to Apptopia data cited by Reuters.

Meta shares have gained more than 20% since Muse was launched, adding more than $200 billion to the company's market capitalization. The assistant can send emails, book travel and complete transactions. Meta offers a free version alongside subscription plans priced at $20 and $100 a month.

JPMorgan analysts said Muse had benefited from Meta's distribution and its free tier, while BofA Global Research cited the assistant's ability to complete multi-step tasks with limited intervention. Of 64 brokerages covering Meta, 57 had a "buy" rating or higher, according to LSEG data cited by Reuters.

Wells Fargo also raised its price target on Meta to $796 from $640 Monday, pointing to the company's recent AI releases, including Muse and its Muse Spark models, Yahoo Finance reported.

Meta is also heading into its annual Connect conference, scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is set to deliver the opening keynote, with the company expected to discuss its latest AI and wearable products.

The conference follows a sharp increase in Meta's spending on AI infrastructure. The company has expanded data centers and computing capacity while reorganizing its AI operations and hiring Scale AI co-founder Alexandr Wang as its chief AI officer.

Meta has also announced plans for Petal, a roughly 4,300-mile subsea cable connecting the U.S. and France. The company said the cable will carry one petabit of data per second across the Atlantic and is scheduled to enter service in 2029.