Meta Muse Adds AI Avatars, Mac Control, Smart Glasses and Shopping
Meta expands Muse with avatars, smart glasses, Mac control, email, shopping and payments, plus transaction fees and third party connectors in coming months.
Summary
At Connect in Menlo Park on Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg positioned Meta’s weeks old Muse as its central consumer AI bet and a future personal superintelligence for billions. Launched in early September and powered by the multimodal Muse Spark model, Muse works across devices, email, calendars, apps and digital accounts. Its physical avatar is named Jolly, while the new Muse Realtime Avatar model will let users create distinct faces, bodies and voices for live video conversations. Zuckerberg predicts Muse will make money for users and Meta, offering a large free token allowance before Meta takes a small transaction fee.
Muse will reach Meta smart glasses in the coming months, responding to a wake word while guiding workouts, logging meals, booking appointments and purchasing viewed products. It will operate any Mac app, continue queued work unattended, and eventually receive an email address for joining threads and handling forwarded messages, although Meta gave no precise email launch date. Chief AI officer Alexandr Wang said commerce support includes Stripe, Shopify’s full catalog, Lync, Shop Pay and PayPal, plus Best Buy, Gap, Sephora, Walmart, Wayfair, Expedia and soon Instacart. GitHub, Granola and Notion are also connectors. Meta opened connector development to outside developers and received more than 1,500 applications in under a week, aiming to extend Muse into small businesses.
Positives
- More than 1,500 connector applications arrived in under a week after Meta opened Muse integration development to outsiders.
- Muse Realtime Avatar will add customizable faces, bodies and voices for live video conversations with the agent.
- Meta smart glasses will let Muse guide workouts, log meals, arrange appointments and purchase products identified by users.
- Mac support will allow Muse to operate any desktop app and continue queued work after users leave.
- Stripe, Shopify, Shop Pay, PayPal and major retail integrations give Muse extensive shopping and payment capabilities.
Risks & concerns
- Meta has not specified exact launch dates for smart glasses support or Muse’s planned email address.
- Mac control will let Muse operate any desktop application and continue working without the user present.
- Muse requires connections across devices, apps, email, calendars and digital accounts to deliver its promised automation.
- Meta expects eventually to charge small transaction fees despite initially offering a large free token allowance.