Meta's Muse gets its first television ad as reviewers question its data habits
Alexandr Wang says the spot runs nationwide this weekend, while WIRED reports the app opts users into training-data collection and asks for bank and passport details.
Meta's Muse assistant aired its first national television advertisement this weekend, Alexandr Wang of Meta said on Saturday, adding that it would run during the weekend's big games. One market commentator posted the spot on Sunday, saying Meta had just aired it. Wang said the reception has been beyond the team's biggest dreams.
The ad follows a week of releases. Muse's account listed Muse for Mac, expansion to Canada on iOS and web with Android to follow, connectors with Granola and Notion, and a developer platform. TechCrunch reported on Thursday that the Mac version can work with a user's files and apps to take action on their behalf. Wang also promoted a Muse Spark 1.3 coding model for use in OpenCode.
The reviews are less warm. WIRED reported on Sunday that the app continues Meta's trend of opting users into data collection for AI training, and that it nudges users to share bank account, email and passport information. The Verge wrote on Saturday that Muse probably cannot see a user's notifications, but also has no idea how it itself works.
The economics are unexplained. One analyst notes that Meta appears to give each user a cloud virtual machine with CPUs, 8GB of memory and 7.5GB of disk, and asks where the product will be monetised. Meta has not said. Axios reported on Sunday on the wider contest among OpenAI, Meta, xAI and Apple to build the assistant people use.