Meta says it wants billions of people using Muse AI helpers, and then wants those helpers working together, even as privacy complaints and costs pile up.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he wants billions of people using its Muse AI agents, and then he wants those agents talking to each other. He laid out the plan on Meta's earnings call on Wednesday. An AI agent is a helper that can act for you, such as shopping, instead of only answering questions.
"We expect to grow Muse to serve billions of people. This is both our mission and our strategy," Zuckerberg said. He argued that billions of Muses in a network could get more done for people and businesses by working together. Meta wants to build that network "as quickly as possible." It also explains why Meta is not charging everyone up front. The aim is to attract as many users as possible.
Meta says more than 10 million people in the US and Canada have set up a personal Muse agent since early September. Zuckerberg said Muse has been number one in the App Store almost every day. Shopping is the most common use. More than a quarter of users do it, with an average purchase above $200.
Muse is only about a month and a half old, and problems have already surfaced. It is also unclear what agents working together will actually involve, which raises questions about how personal data gets shared.
Earlier on Wednesday, a New Mexico judge ordered Meta to pay $25 billion for misleading consumers about data privacy, tied to the Cambridge Analytica scandal from nearly a decade ago. Meta said it will appeal.
Zuckerberg admitted Muse is "very compute intensive to run," meaning it takes a lot of expensive computing power. Meta expects to spend at least $135 billion this year, mostly on AI infrastructure. Its free cash flow, the cash left after running the business and investing, was negative $2.12 billion for the quarter ending September 30. Meta also plans a new class of non-voting stock next year to raise money without diluting Zuckerberg's control.
Anyone trying Muse should think hard about what it can see and what it can buy. Those are the areas where users have already reported trouble. Business owners should also note that Gizmodo points to Meta's new terms, which say that if a business uses Meta for any commercial purpose, Meta can do almost anything it wants with content from that business's website, including feeding it to Muse.
Before letting Muse read your messages or spend your money, limit what it can access, since users have already reported leaks.
A tech writer fed his Windows error logs to ChatGPT and learned his encrypted drive had no recovery key, a problem that could have locked him out for good.
Read more: ChatGPT read his laptop's error logs and found three hidden problemsA TikTok Shop affiliate says a strong first line, an honest demo and steady posting earned him six figures last year. Here is how it works and what it costs to try.
Read more: How a TikTok creator earns six figures with a 3-second opening lineGoogle's Gemini can now edit a PDF inside the chat, so fixing a travel plan no longer means downloading the file and starting over in another app.
Read more: Gemini can now edit your PDF itinerary without starting over
