Meta Muse Review: New AI Assistant Knows Too Much About You
Meta's new productivity assistant automates tasks like email sorting and shopping, but raises serious privacy concerns with how much it knows about you.
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Meta has launched Muse, an AI assistant for productivity that the company markets as a way to take everyday tedious tasks off your plate. It’s Meta’s first serious attempt to enter the work-focused assistant segment, which has been dominated by Google and Microsoft products until now.
Muse runs on a virtual computer in the cloud and performs tasks autonomously: it sorts emails, shops online, plans trips, generates AI podcasts similar to Gemini Notebook, creates images, videos, and interactive documents called artifacts. To use it, you need to connect it to external accounts - Gmail, Amazon, or other services.
It Works, But at the Cost of Privacy
Emma Roth from The Verge tested Muse and described mixed feelings. The assistant managed to delete thousands of promotional emails from a Gmail inbox - though connecting the Google account on a phone caused technical problems and required switching to a laptop. When shopping on Amazon, Muse noticed on its own that there were other products in the cart and asked whether to remove them. That was a nice touch.
A more serious problem emerged with the Feed tab, where Muse generates a personalized content stream. The assistant listed very specific user interests - directly linked to her Instagram account - that she had never provided to it. Meta claims that Muse only exchanges data with external apps that’s necessary for operation and doesn’t pass information to advertisers. Given the company’s reputation on privacy matters, that assurance is hard to accept without reservations.
Testing also revealed inconsistencies in content filtering. Muse refused to generate an image of a character in red pants and a mustache - a clear allusion to Mario - but had no problem creating materials with the Apple logo: product photos, mockups of a foldable iPhone, and even a presentation with the characteristic bitten apple. Native iOS icons appeared on the devices, though app names were mixed up - the App Store turned into Photos, and Maps and Music got the label Calender.
Muse is a tool that actually performs the tasks you assign it - the question is just what price in data you’re paying for that convenience.
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