I tried Metas new Muse AI agent its incredibly useful, but handing it my digital life felt deeply uncomfortable

Date:
Mon, 14 Sep 2026 11:48:04 +0000

Description:
Metas Muse proved remarkably capable at handling digital errands, but its usefulness depends on granting an unsettling amount of access to personal information.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Metas new Muse AI platform
would like the keys to your digital life to help run it for you. Muse is a personal AI agent that Meta built to complete tasks on your behalf, including sending emails, filling out forms, shopping, and pretty much any other activity with an online component.

The AI is available in the U.S. as an app, or through WhatsApp or the Muse.ai portal . It's a familiar idea in some respects. Muse matches OpenAI and other AI developers in being able to open a browser inside its own cloud-based virtual computer and move between connected services. It returns when it has finished, encounters a problem, or needs permission to do something
sensitive. Latest Videos From TechRadar Watch full video here:

Meta describes the experience as having an agent that understands your goals and advances them independently. That can come off as sinister, even before
it starts asking for permission to essentially be you online by having you sign in to all your online accounts.

Getting started is straightforward, although Muse is currently limited to
U.S. adults. You can install the Muse app from your phone's app store, open Meta's Muse website or access it through WhatsApp . There is a free usage tier, while heavier users can pay $20 per month for Power or $100 for
Maximum. You may like Mark Zuckerberg's Muse personal AI agent is a work accessory designed by people who don't do real work I want to just love my Meta AI glasses, but I cant get over privacy fears Metas super-sensing AI glasses edge one step closer to reality Muse shops for you (Image credit:
Meta Muse) Once you open the app, the first thing the AI does is suggest you pick a nickname for it so you know when it is messaging you. I went with one of the suggested choices, and "Scout" proceeded to ask me what I'd like to do with it, offering a handful of popular options.

I asked Scout to do some shopping for me first, as the AI made it seem like a much smoother process than with other AI tools. I asked it to find me a pair of shorts. It asked my size and went off on its own for a couple of minutes, coming back with a couple of options and pointing to a sale on one particular set. I said okay, and it asked for my Amazon login to make the purchase on my behalf. For an everyday purchase, it was surprisingly pleasant to delegate. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our
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That little interruption was reassuring and unsettling in almost equal measure. Meta says credentials entered this way are routed directly into secure credential storage and are not visible to the main Muse agent. Once stored, they can be inserted into the browser when needed without exposing
the actual credentials to Muse's browser subagent. Muse does the legwork, while I remained the person responsible for deciding whether money actually left my account.

This is probably the easiest Muse task I would recommend trying yourself.
Give it a product, let it browse, and take over whenever a login or other sensitive interaction appears. It demonstrates the agent's capabilities without immediately granting it access to years of personal correspondence.

Naturally, that was exactly what I did next. What to read next I gave Gemini 3.6 Flash and GPT-5.6 access to my entire digital life I gave ChatGPTs new Work mode my most annoying life-admin tasks Meta thought AI could do the job instead of humans what happened next should surprise absolutely nobody Getting Muse to handle my email (Image credit: Shutterstock) I took the
plunge and told Scout I wanted help with my email. I had to give it
permission to go through my inbox and to write on my behalf, and it asked to use it to learn about me. With some trepidation, I okayed that, and it put together the kind of distorted image of my life you'd expect from someone basing their impression of you solely on your emails.

Scout also brought up an unopened email from the power company about needing to check my solar panels. It offered to write a reply if I could pick from
the dates suggested for when they would visit. I did, and a minute later
there was a draft pending my approval. It looked fine, and suddenly another little online errand was done.

It felt different from pasting an email into an AI chatbot . Muse's AI could retrieve the context itself rather than making me act as a courier between my inbox and the AI. Of course, it also felt a lot more personal. Meta has acknowledged how sensitive this access is and built specific defenses to prevent issues.

Muse's email connector filters out one-time tokens, password-reset links, and login links, while its Sentinel security layer controls what actions the
agent is permitted to take outside its virtual machine. When an action requires my approval, the request comes through Muse's interface rather than simply relying on the agent to interpret a conversational yes.

I would keep that friction in place for email, particularly while getting
used to Muse. Saving three minutes responding to a utility company is nice, but it is not worth discovering that your AI assistant has developed an unexpectedly adventurous correspondence style. Muse is convenience mixed with discomfort (Image credit: Pixabay) The more I engaged with Muse, the more the tandem senses of convenience and discomfort grew. Muse feels more
frictionless than similar services with virtual browsers. And the combination of data Meta already has and the data it required permission to access made
it feel more personal, too. Every improvement in its ability to help me came with another small moment where I had to decide how much access I was willing to grant.

Meta says conversations and VM data are not shared with its advertising systems, although browsing activity performed on your behalf can still influence advertising indirectly because websites may treat Muse's visits as your activity. Meta says sanitized agent interactions and tool activity can
be used to train future models, but users can opt out with a switch in Muse's settings. Meta is also developing a Confidential VM mode intended to cryptographically prevent even Meta from accessing information inside the VM.

I was more impressed with Muse than I expected. But that only made me warier about it. Digital chores that consume more time than any one of them deserves are all too common at the moment, and Muse proved remarkably good at stepping into that gap. The catch is that the closer it gets to behaving like a genuinely useful personal assistant, the more personal information it needs
to do the job.

If you're thinking of trying Muse then I would recommend starting gradually, beginning with public web tasks and keeping consequential actions behind approvals at first. The frustrating part is that Muse makes a very persuasive argument for personal AI agents. Meta has built something that makes handing an AI more of my digital life appealing, but not when it's attached to the current crop of tech giants offering those services. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds. The best business laptops for all budgets Our top picks, based on real-world testing and comparisons

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