Meta is shaking up the artificial intelligence landscape once again with the release of Muse, a “personal AI agent” that helps users achieve everyday goals and offers suggestions along the way, according to a company blog post. So far, the product is a hit with consumers, with millions of downloads and rising to the top of the U.S. app rankings less than a month after its release.
What Is Meta Muse?
Muse is anAI agent developed by Meta to break goals down into smaller tasks that it can resolve simultaneously for faster results. It even remembers context from previous conversations and connects to different applications, allowing it to gather on-device user data and offer tailored suggestions based on past activity. Muse is available as a standalone app, directly in WhatsApp or on the website muse.ai.
After restructuring Meta to be more AI-focused and recruiting a wave of talent to run its Meta Superintelligence Labs, CEO Mark Zuckerberg is one step closer to realizing his vision of “personal superintelligence.” But it’s too early to tell if Muse is here to stay. We’re diving into how Muse works, what it can do and the challenges that remain as Meta tries to win over a general public that’s still skeptical of AI.
What Is Meta’s Muse?
Muse is Meta’s new AI agent, an advanced system that can complete multi-step tasks with little to no human supervision. Users can access Muse on the website muse.ai, directly in WhatsApp or through a standalone mobile app on iOS and Android devices. No prior setup is required, so even those with zero technical knowledge can enjoy an intuitive experience when first interacting with Muse.
Along those lines, users can casually converse with Muse when asking questions or submitting requests, making each exchange feel more natural. Muse also remembers previous conversations and integrates with different applications, compiling data on users’ on-device activities. It can then propose recommendations based on users’ preferences, rather than just following commands to fulfill a stated goal.
How Does Muse Work?
The brains behind every agent is a large language model (LLM), an AI model trained on massive volumes of data to understand and generate natural language responses. In this case, the Muse Spark model family powers Muse. Spark acts as Muse’s central processing unit, reviewing user prompts, gathering context from its surroundings and producing outputs that adequately address the initial inputs.
When a user asks a more complex question or request, Spark determines the overall goal and breaks it down into individual steps. Next, Muse solves them one at a time, deciding what actions to take at each stage. This level of autonomy can’t be matched by virtual assistants and other AI tools, which often depend on constant guidance. As an agent, Muse also contains smaller systems called sub-agents that can complete tasks in parallel, so it can finish multiple steps simultaneously and work faster toward its goal.
To inform its responses with outside data, Muse uses an application programming interface (API) that lets it communicate and exchange information with other apps. It can then perform tasks in various applications like scheduling calendar events, organizing emails and booking reservations. At the same time, compiling context from these different sources means Muse can keep its own database updated as well.
What Can Muse Do?
In pursuit of personal superintelligence, Meta has equipped Muse with capabilities that make it particularly useful for everyday needs.
Long-Term Memory
Muse remembers previous conversations with users, instead of refreshing every session. This approach saves users from repeating information and creates more personalized interactions. Because of its extended memory, Muse can follow through on more demanding tasks, too, operating in the background even when a user closes an app. It’s also mindful enough to return to a user for approval of certain actions or additional guidance if conditions change.
Proactive Planning
Muse can connect to Google Workspace, fitness, e-commerce, and social media apps. By tracking user habits across these applications, Muse can anticipate a user’s needs and act accordingly without any prior guidance. It can send reminders based on email content, suggest future purchases related to past shopping patterns and put together a workout plan centered around a user’s health data, among other actions.
Online Shopping
With Muse, Meta is also upgrading the online shopping experience through agentic AI. Not only does Muse support Link — a digital wallet built by financial services company Stripe — but it also comes with Link’s protections, including no return fees, guaranteed refunds and coverage for damage, loss and theft. Muse is expected to add Shop Pay as well, another digital wallet designed by Shopify that facilitates faster checkouts with one-click payments.
Cloud Security
To keep data secure, Muse runs on a virtual machine called Muse Secure VM. A VM is essentially a virtual simulation of a computer that has its own operating system. In this setup, no other agent can access Muse Secure VM, which stores sensitive information like payment methods and passwords in the cloud without actually “seeing” it. A separate security agent called Sentinel runs in the VM, approving any of Muse’s actions that require the internet and asking a user for permission when necessary.
What Challenges Does Meta’s Muse Face?
While Muse is supposed to be proactive and autonomous, it has demonstrated an unsettling tendency to veer off script. Users have reported the agent attempting to access emails and read private messages without their permission. This behavior has further fueled safety concerns about letting agents function without any guardrails, especially in light of the Hugging Face incident that saw OpenAI agents go on a hacking spree.
Besides agentic AI’s shaky reputation, Meta has its own PR problems to fix after being battered by social media lawsuits. With more Americans pushing back against Big Tech, Meta will need to pull double duty as it tries to convince users that it takes their online privacy and well-being seriously and that they can entrust AI with their most intimate data.
What Could Muse Mean for the AI Industry?
The arrival of Muse could potentially accelerate some major shifts in how consumers go about their daily lives in the digital realm. For instance, agents are increasingly being deployed to shop online and complete purchases, creating an extra layer between online retailers and shoppers. Amazon decided it wasn’t taking any chances and banned Muse from its site to preserve its direct relationship with customers.
Meta hasn’t forgotten about the enterprise space, either. In back-to-back announcements, the company also launched an enterprise platform and small business skills suite that give organizations access to its agentic tech stack and enhanced Muse features, respectively. These moves establish Meta as a strong competitor to OpenAI and Anthropic in enterprise AI, although Anthropic’s Claude products have historically dominated this niche.
With AI companies looking to justify massive spending and unprecedented IPOs, Meta is betting that the quickest route to profitability is prioritizing individual customers over corporations. In the end, Muse may not catapult Meta to the forefront of the AI industry, but it could still convince other tech companies to pivot to more personalized AI products and transform how consumers navigate everyday life if its mainstream popularity continues.
Frequently Asked Questions
How to access Meta Muse
Muse is available as a standalone app on iOS and Android devices. Users can access it directly in WhatsApp or through the website muse.ai, too.
How does Muse compare to other AI assistants?
In general, virtual assistants follow rigid instructions to complete tasks. On the other hand, Meta’s Muse breaks up a goal into smaller steps and decides on the best way to solve each one. It also retains context from previous user conversations and different applications to inform its responses and provide relevant recommendations without prompting. This higher level of autonomy is what distinguishes Muse from virtual assistants and other AI tools.
Does Muse remember previous conversations?
Yes, Muse retains context from previous interactions. It also uses an application programming interface to communicate with other apps and gather data on user activity in those apps. This way, Muse can pick up sessions where it left off, work on complicated tasks in the background and even propose relevant suggestions according to user habits.
How does Muse protect sensitive data?
Muse secures data in a virtual machine (VM) called Muse Secure VM, which simulates a computer, has its own operating system and stores data in the cloud. A separate agent called Sentinel monitors this VM, approves any actions that require internet access and asks for user permission when appropriate. While Muse Secure VM houses sensitive information like passwords and payment methods, it can’t actually “see” this data.
What security issues have been reported with Meta Muse?
Users have reported Muse performing actions without their approval, such as trying to access Gmail and read personal messages. These instances echo earlier incidents like the OpenAI-Hugging Face breach, reigniting fears of cybersecurity threats if agents are allowed to function with few guardrails.
