Meta wants its new AI agent to run your digital life

Meta unveiled on Tuesday its new personal AI agent, Muse, which it says can actively perform tasks on behalf of users. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Muse in an Instagram post Tuesday. It can send emails, book travel, fill out web forms, and negotiate on a user’s behalf, Meta says. The agent runs on Muse Spark, which Meta describes as its most capable model built for agentic work. The agent is rolling out in the U.S. as a standalone iOS and Android app. It is also available at muse.ai and works inside WhatsApp. It is free for most uses, with subscription plans for people who want the agent to handle longer or more complicated tasks. Meta says its AI glasses will soon support Muse as well. Muse accesses a user’s personal information, web credentials, and payment information to “work on a person’s behalf across the apps they use daily, learning from conversations, reflecting on what matters to them, and getting sharper along the way,” the company says. For example, it can turn a saved Instagram recipe reel into a grocery list, suggest a dinner-party menu, and recall guests’ dietary restrictions before sending invites. For longer agentic tasks, such as selling a car for more or lowering a bill, Meta says Muse keeps working after the user closes the app and returns when something changes or it needs approval. For purchases, Muse can check out using an agent wallet called Link, built by Stripe. Security and trust The biggest barrier to users entrusting their personal affairs to a Meta AI agent may be trust. Meta’s core ads business is built on harvesting the personal data of its social app users, and the company has shown a disregard for the mental health of young users. The more agency and autonomy an AI possesses, the greater the potential for privacy or security breaches. “[T]he consequences of agents getting things wrong aren’t just a bad recommendation or a creepy ad,” says Center for Democracy and Technology chief technologist Miranda Bogen in a statement Tuesday. “With minimal input from users, these systems could take actions that damage someone’s reputation, leak sensitive medical information, or even deplete bank accounts.” Meta says Muse does not share a user’s conversations or VM data with Meta’s ad systems, and users can opt out of having their interactions used to train Meta’s AI models. Users can choose which apps Muse connects to and how much access it gets to each. For email, Meta says users choose whether Muse can only read messages or also send them on their behalf. Access can be changed or a service disconnected at any time. Users can also tell Muse to forget specific things it has learned.