Meta debuts its Muse AI agent

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2:31That's framer.com slash fcdaily. Rules and restrictions may apply. Meta debuts its Muse AI agent. I'm Emron Shaikh, and here's your Daily Crunch for Wednesday, featuring three big tech headlines starting right now. A video game posted to the Trump administration's website, one that closely resembled Tetris has been taken down after the Tetris company complained. The White House recently took the unusual step of posting a number of arcade-style video games to its website. One of the more controversial was a game called Build the Wall, which reportedly mirrored Tetris' gameplay, tasking players with stacking blocks of various shapes and sizes.

3:14Widely criticized as racist. The stated goal of the game was to build a wall in order to keep out a zombie border siege. Not long after Build the Wall's existence became public, the Tetris company, which owns the rights to the original Tetris game, spoke out about it, clarifying that it had no role in its creation. The Tetris company was not involved in the creation of Build the Wall, it said in an Instagram post adding, we take copyright infringement very seriously. So what's happening now, well, the page for Build the Wall now returns a 404 error, meaning the page no longer exists. Kotaku first spotted that the game was no longer visible on the White House's website.

3:55TechCrunch has reached out to the Trump administration for comment. Well, looks like Shipt became the latest delivery app with an AI shopping assistant. You see, Shipt, the same-day delivery platform owned by Target, is the latest delivery app to join the AI cart race. The company announced on Wednesday that its new Ask Shipt tool will help customers shop more intuitively and turn prompts into customized, ready-to-buy carts. Now, with this launch, Shipt joins a growing list of delivery platforms baking AI assistants into their apps. Just this morning, Instacart launched a new AI-powered grocery shopping assistant called Clementine, while Uber Eats and DoorDash have also introduced similar AI assistants this year.

4:35Users can ask the assistant to do things like create a cart for my Saturday tailgate for 25 people and include some brunch items or build a cart for easy school lunches and after school snacks, Shipt says. They can also upload a photo of a dish they saw online or at a restaurant and the assistant will identify and add all of the ingredients to a cart. Additionally, users can now ask for ideas based on their budget, such as a weeknight meal for a family of five under 35 bucks. Ask Shipt is available now in the Shipt app and on Shipt.com. Less than two weeks after Meta agreed to a massive$18 billion multi-state settlement in a lawsuit over social media's consumer harms, the company announced its biggest bet on consumer AI to date, and one that requires significantly more trust than social media ever did.

5:27You see, on Tuesday, the company introduced Muse, its new personal AI agent that helps consumers with everyday tasks and projects for users in the US. Now, to use Muse, consumers will have to trust Meta with more of their personal info than ever before. See, the AI agent works by connecting to the user's apps and services that are a part of everyday workflows like email, calendars, payments, and other things the individual may regularly use like apps for health and fitness, the smart home, dining, shopping, music and events, and more. The idea is a sizable bet on what comes after the ChatGPT era, where AI chatbots answered questions, served as sounding boards, or even became digital companions.

6:09Instead, Muse is focusing on AI that can, well, actually do things for you. The company's saying the agent can do things like sending emails, booking travel, lowering bills, filling out forms, creating plans, turning recipe reels into grocery lists, sending party invitations, and making purchases, leveraging Link by Stripe for checkout. The latter offers purchase protections, which could potentially ease consumers' fears of letting an AI checkout on their behalf. Shopify's ShopPay and 1Password integrations are also coming soon. Muse's users can decide which apps and services they want to connect, doing so one at a time, to make the opt-in nature of using Muse more transparent.

6:51The agents powered by Meta's AI model, MuseSpark, and ships with built-in connectors for several services with plans to add more over time. Now, if a service the user wants isn't available but offers a public API, Muse can set up a connection using credentials the user provides. When no API is available, Muse can access the service via the browser instead. Two paid plans will be available at launch, power at$20 per month and maximum at$100 per month. Both of these subscriptions offer more Muse usage for handing off everyday tasks, though Meta believes most people will remain on the free tier. The company says the app includes a usage meter that shows users what percentage of their usage they have left.

7:35It's also going to warn users when free usage runs out and present options to subscribe. Like other AI agents, Muse will continue to work even after the user leaves the app. It will also improve over time by learning from the user's conversations what's important to them to make suggestions unprompted, Meta noted. The concept? While it's not unique to Meta, the Agentec era is now coming into its own as larger companies and smaller startups alike are experimenting with how AI agents will make the most sense for consumers and can become integrated into people's daily lives. Despite Meta's documentation of its security measures, it remains to be seen whether the company has enough consumer trust for its agent to be successful.

8:18And folks, that's your Daily Crunch. Today's stories were reported by Sarah Perez, Lucas Ropec, Aisha Malik, and more awesome TechCrunch journalists. We'll see you here tomorrow. Same Tech Time, same Crunch channel. And until then, find us at TechCrunch.com.

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