Meta's new AI agent Muse took the spotlight at the company's annual Connect event, where CEO Mark Zuckerberg made clear that Facebook's parent company plans to push AI features everywhere, according to TechCrunch's coverage of the event.
On the latest episode of TechCrunch's Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Sean O'Kane, and Anthony Ha discussed how Meta's AI announcements seemed to steal the spotlight during a week of new model launches from OpenAI and Anthropic. With other big AI companies focused on coding and enterprise tools, Meta moved in the opposite direction, with a consumer focus and a cute, Tamagotchi-style device that the company insists is for adults only.
Sean O'Kane tried Muse for himself and was pleased that the agent actually found him some unclaimed money, but he described the feature as more "a party-trick type thing," rather than something that will drive ongoing usage. He also raised the question of whether users can trust Meta's AI with sensitive information.
"Meta's business is to sell you ads," O'Kane said. "And yes, they'll make the argument that the more they know about you, the more accurate and interesting the ads will be. Wake me up when we get to that fever dream."
Anthony Ha noted the divergence: "That was definitely very head spinning for me, because it certainly feels like what we've been talking about has been this shift towards enterprise not exclusively, but certainly that's where the money, the attention is going."
Ha speculated that Meta might see a different opportunity, making the more consumer-friendly version of AI agents while rivals chase enterprise revenue ahead of their planned public offerings.