Meta Muse AI Agent Launches in Japan, Books and Reminds Itself

Meta's personal AI agent Muse launched in Japan on October 23. Beyond searching for information and answering questions, it can operate websites on the user's behalf and carry out tasks such as reservations and shopping. According to the company, Muse passed 10 million downloads in the United States within a month of launch.

Acting instead of just answering

In a hands-on discussion recorded on October 27, two editors described the main difference from chatbots such as ChatGPT. A text generator fetches information and leaves the work to the user. Muse opens a browser itself and completes the booking, so the user only confirms. In a cinema test, it could pick seats on request, for example in the middle or near an exit, rather than just listing showtimes.

Muse also works in the background while the user does something else, and it runs on a smartphone as well as a PC.

Proactive, sometimes too much

Once linked to Gmail and Google Calendar, Muse began making suggestions unprompted. One tester received a warning about an upcoming credit card debit and later a confirmation that the payment had arrived. Another tester's chat about meeting a friend led Muse to offer to add it to the calendar, and it then asked about the venue. It can also read phone status such as battery level and notifications, and use location to suggest which train to catch.

A connector for the finance app Money Forward produced a subscription review totalling about 30,000 yen a month. Muse flagged an unusually priced plan and suggested cancelling after the Formula 1 season ends, offering to add a reminder to the calendar.

The downsides: Muse sometimes explains things the user already knows, and keeps reporting seat availability for a film the tester never booked. The testers say its memory feature should learn from instructions such as "don't notify me about this."

What testers want next

Muse is currently free, which the editors see as a major advantage over paid subscriptions from rival AI services. They want voice conversation like a phone call and wake-word activation, for example to book takeaway from a car. They also noted its animated, customisable character, which encourages attachment and could make users less likely to switch services.