The next shiny new AI thing has arrived: The personal AI agent.
Once mostly the domain of Silicon Valley coders who used them to amp up their efficiency at work (and anxiety levels), the AI agent is now being welcomed into the home.
And with the release of Meta's new personal AI agent, Muse, the do-it-for-you tech is rocketing into the mainstream.
"It feels like magic," investor Sheel Mohnot said on X in reference to Instinct, another trendy new personal AI agent. "Contrary to what some people have said, I don't think the appeal is limited to Silicon Valley types."
These agents often live on common messaging apps. Users send messages, asking them to handle tasks like sending emails, purchasing things online, posting to social media, tracking prices, managing calendars, among many other things.
In Meta's first television spot, released this weekend, for the Muse AI agent, a woman prepares for a dinner party — chopping lettuce, mixing drinks — while her AI agent autonomously sorts emails, arranges her schedule, and purchases back-to-school items online.
"Muse is going NATIONWIDE to a television near you," Alexandr Wang, Meta's chief AI officer, said on X on Saturday.
The appeal of autonomous agents is plain. While the famous chatbots from Anthropic and OpenAI that are changing the world are designed to answer questions, personal AI agents can act on a user's behalf, run entirely in the background, handle whole processes online, and ping you with progress updates.
It likely won't be long until AI agents are all over the internet.
If you really want to take full advantage of their potential, however, Muse and other AI agents require the keys to your kingdom, including your email, your credit card information, your bank accounts, and an array of passwords.
"A mistake or manipulation could have real-world consequences, and that is terrifying," Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at internet security firm ESET, recently told Business Insider.
Meta has taken pains to reassure users that its agent cares about keeping your information secure. In marketing materials, Meta calls Muse "an agent that respects privacy."
So far, concerns about privacy haven't dissuaded consumers from jumping on the personal AI assistant bandwagon. One day after its launch, Muse shot to the top of the App Store.
"Introducing Muse," a line of text on the Muse app reads. "AI that hustles for you."
Read next
Truman Dickerson is the Weekend News Fellow at Business Insider, based in New York City. He covers trending tech and business news. He previously reported for The Boston Globe's Express Desk. He graduated from Boston University, where he served as editor in chief of The Daily Free Press, BU's student-run newspaper.Contact him at [email protected]
