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AI agents such as Meta Muse can do more than answer questions. They can shop, make reservations, track deadlines and handle tasks on your behalf.
Samuel Boivin/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Got a tech query? AARP members and readers are invited to send me their questions about devices, online safety, social media and navigating today’s technology.
I’m hearing a lot about Meta Muse and AIs that you don’t merely chat with but can do things for you. How do these differ from chatbots, and are they safe?
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It’s easy to imagine how a helpful AI agent can take stuff off your plate, saving you time, money and potentially a lot of hassle. Maybe it’s about contacting an insurance company on your behalf, filling out forms, reminding you to follow up with someone, booking a vacation or autonomously buying a product once its price hits rock bottom.
However, it’s equally worrisome that such an agent could invade your privacy and, absent proper safeguards, go off the rails and do things you don’t want it to.
If you’ve been paying attention to the tech news lately, you’ve likely tuned in to a lot of chatter on the immediate and long-term societal impacts of artificial intelligence. It’s hard to ignore the doomsday scenarios of what rogue AI agents might ultimately do to us humans. Just the other day, reports emerged that AI agents from OpenAI, the company made famous by ChatGPT, attempted to hack an Australian government website and the University of New Mexico’s digital library. I mention this not to scare folks or plunge into this apocalyptic minefield myself, but rather to provide some context for the swirling debate around AI.
There’s been considerable buzz around the first-to-market, consumer-focused AI agent from Meta, called Muse, which in the two weeks or so since its public launch climbed to the top of the free download charts in Apple’s App Store, outranking better-known AIs like ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude.
The app is a chart-topper on the Google Play Store as well, and Meta has also released a desktop version for Mac computers, though not yet for Microsoft Windows.
All the major tech companies are investing in agentic AI, with some elements that overlap with what Muse can do. But none, so far, have pushed agents on consumers as broadly as Meta is doing with Muse.
For instance, you might plan a trip with help from ChatGPT. But Muse not only monitors reservations and watches for openings, it will also complete that booking with Expedia.
Google’s Gemini can call merchants to check business hours and product availability, and to manage appointments. These capabilities are being rolled out “gradually.” For its part, Muse can watch products and buy them when certain conditions are met. It keeps working even after you close the app, then pipes in when something changes or it needs your approval. Or, as the agent told me: “I can use websites, not just search them.”
I’ve been testing Muse myself for a few days and have taken a liking to it — albeit with reservations.
Unlike basic chatbots, AI agents aren’t necessarily there to answer our questions but, with permission, can execute actions on our behalf, whether it is reshuffling your calendar or reporting the broken streetlamp down the block to the authorities. And yes, with our blessing, pay for stuff at checkout.
Moreover, you can engage with Muse over pretty much anything in a main chat area, or zero in on a specific topic in a side chat. Each keeps its own chat history. You can also chat with Muse within Meta-owned WhatsApp.
Muse is free to download, but there are usage limits under the free tier. Those who expect to use it a lot must pay $20 per month, with an even higher usage tier at $100 a month. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that over time, the company would extract a “small fee from transactions.”
What Muse can do
When I first downloaded Muse, it suggested several ways it might prove useful to me, a few of which I tried out.
For instance, if I shared that I was free over the weekend, Meta AI said it could find out what’s popular and attempt to score tickets for events, shows and pop-ups in my area. If I shared a picture of my meal, Muse indicated it could track the calories from the photo.
It said it could track down and cancel subscriptions I may have forgotten about. It could also look for unclaimed money owed to me in any of the places I have lived before.
Required: your trust
While many of Muse’s ideas sound great in theory, sharing the data required to handle those and other tasks frankly gave me pause. Meta doesn’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to privacy.
For example, having Muse find those unwanted subscriptions means sharing your email inbox with it, which I half-reluctantly did. Or uploading a recent credit card or bank statement, which I didn’t.
And having it check whether I’m owed uncollected money meant not only telling the company my full name and its variations, but also all the places I’ve lived and when I lived there. I agreed to it.
To be fair, Meta said I would not have to share my Social Security number, photos or login IDs, and that if such sensitive information were needed to collect unclaimed money, I would enter it directly into the official state database that required it, not through Muse.
I’ve refrained from sharing financial statements with Meta. And as I write this, I’m still on the fence about sharing info from my Apple Health app.
For the record, Meta claims your personal information will be kept safe and secure and notes that integration with the 1Password password manager is coming soon. Meta also says that when shopping with its agent, a one-time card number is generated at checkout so that merchants never see your real card. It added that conversations you have with Muse are not shared with Meta’s advertising systems.
Still, it’s worth pointing out that Meta has already had to issue an “emergency hotfix” after a researcher discovered a flaw that could hijack the AI agent.
An NBC News headline summed up some of the concerns: “It’s cute. It’s cuddly. And it wants your data.”
Being helpful
All that said, it seems the app goes out of its way to be useful.
For example, I asked about parking options near MetLife Stadium, where the New York Giants play, and it delivered the information. A day later, I received an unsolicited message from the agent warning me to keep an eye on the weather forecast, as a rare September nor’easter might hit the area on game day. Mind you, I never told Muse I’d actually be attending.
After viewing my inbox, Muse sent me messages advising me to be home the next day for a package delivery requiring my signature, and another reminding me of a fast-approaching license renewal deadline. It also wanted to confirm that a money transfer I’d made from my bank account was legit. “If that was you, nothing to do,” Muse assured me.
In some cases, Muse offered to draft replies to certain emails, though as of this writing, I haven’t taken the agent up on the offer.
I did ask Muse for suggestions on where to celebrate my wife’s upcoming milestone birthday. One of the Manhattan restaurants it came up with sounded great, but Muse reported that the place wasn’t accepting reservations until exactly 28 days before her birthday. Muse volunteered to jump on booking a table the morning it opened up and indicated it would check in with me before anything gets finalized, since I’d have to provide a credit card to hold the reservation. We’ll see how that works out.
I’ve arranged for Muse to send me twice-daily news briefings, which, in addition to the headlines, include heads-ups from my inbox and calendar.
Muse can’t take over everything, of course, which is probably a good thing. That unclaimed money search, for example, hit a snag because every relevant site that Muse hit popped up a “prove you’re human” check before it would show any results.
Shopping partners
Having an agent shop for you is one of the more promising and yet a bit scary skills Muse is capable of. It’s not surprising that Muse can hunt for bargains in Facebook Marketplace: Meta owns Facebook, along with Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp. Muse can also shop via Shopify, Walmart, Best Buy, Gap, Sephora, Wayfair, Expedia and Instacart. One notable holdout is Amazon, which presumably is protecting its own e-commerce turf. Amazon is blocking the Muse agent from shopping on amazon.com.
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