Meta and OpenAI's New AI Agents Want to Run Your Life
They'll book dinner and sort email — but at what privacy cost?
Meta and OpenAI have both released AI agents — always-on digital assistants that can do tasks for you. Meta's Muse is free, while OpenAI's Dots charges a fee. They're pitched as friendly mascots that can handle everything from booking dinner reservations to sorting your email, and OpenAI even offers specialist versions for legal, marketing, and accounting work.
These agents are a big step up from earlier AI. Past attempts were buggy and unreliable. But a developer named Peter Steinberger showed what was possible with his OpenClaw agent, which was useful despite privacy issues. That inspired big tech to act. Now, with Muse and Dots, millions of people can try agents that actually work.
So what's the catch? To be truly helpful, these agents need access to your personal data — your inbox, your credit card, even files on your computer. That raises serious privacy and security questions. Handing over that much control to a company like Meta or OpenAI is a big ask, especially since neither has a perfect track record on privacy.
Meta might have an edge because it's great at making products people actually use, and Muse is free. But OpenAI's Dots are more advanced, with specialized versions for different jobs. The real question is whether people will trust these companies enough to let AI run their lives. The technology is here, but trust is the missing piece.
- Meta's Muse is free; OpenAI's Dots costs money and offers specialized versions for work tasks.
- These agents can book reservations, manage email, and more — but need access to your personal data.
- Privacy and security are major concerns when handing over credit card and email information to AI.
Why It Matters
These agents could save you time but require giving up personal data to big tech companies.