Meta's New AI Agent Muse Wants to Do Your Tasks for You

Meta launched a new AI app called Muse on Tuesday, and it's already the second-most-downloaded free app on US iPhones. Muse is an "agent" — meaning an AI that can take actions for you, like planning a trip or sending messages, instead of just answering questions. About 83,000 people downloaded it on iPhone so far. On Android, though, it's barely registering — ranked No. 338 in the productivity category.

Compared with Meta's other launches, Muse is off to a slow start. Threads got 4.3 million US downloads on day one; the Meta AI app got 108,000. ChatGPT had over half a million US installs in under a week. To be fair, Muse is still climbing the charts, and it's also available on the web and inside WhatsApp — those users aren't counted yet. Meta clearly thinks agents are the future of consumer AI, and this is one of its biggest bets in years.

Here's the catch: Muse asks users to hand over more personal information, and it arrived just days after Meta agreed to an $18 billion multistate settlement over social media's harms to consumers. Meta has also faced years of data scandals and multiple FTC fines over privacy violations. So the real question isn't whether Muse works — it's whether people trust Meta enough to let an AI run their lives.

Meanwhile, the competition is moving fast. A rival called Instinct — an AI agent that works over text messages — is now valued at $2.5 billion and just gave every user their own email address. Its agents can even talk to your friends' agents to coordinate plans, and it now connects to Stripe and 1Password for payments and passwords. Google and Anthropic are building similar tools. The race to become your everyday AI helper is officially on.