Meta’s New AI Agent Found Me Free Money – But I Still Don’t Trust It
Meta trust issues loom large over the company’s new AI agent Muse, even as it stole the spotlight at Meta’s annual Connect event, where CEO Mark Zuckerberg made clear that Facebook’s parent company plans to push AI features into every corner of its products.
On a recent episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, hosts Kirsten Korosec, Sean O’Kane, and Anthony Ha discussed how Meta’s AI announcements managed to steal attention during a week that also saw new model launches from OpenAI and Anthropic.
A Surprising Consumer Bet
With other major AI companies focused heavily on coding and enterprise tools, it was somewhat surprising to see Meta head in the opposite direction, leaning into a consumer-focused approach centered on a cute, Tamagotchi-style AI companion the company insists is strictly for adults. As Korosec noted, though, this could actually be playing directly to Meta’s core strengths.
Ha admitted the pivot felt disorienting given the broader industry conversation. “That was definitely very head spinning for me, because it certainly feels like what we’ve been talking about has been this shift towards enterprise,” he said, suggesting OpenAI and Anthropic’s push toward business customers may partly reflect pressure to prove profitability ahead of expected public offerings. Meta, by contrast, may simply see a different opportunity. “If that’s where OpenAI and Anthropic are going, then maybe there is more of an opportunity for Meta to make the more consumer-friendly version and continue advancing AI on the consumer side,” Ha said.
Korosec pointed to Meta’s long track record of embedding itself deeply into everyday people’s lives through Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. “I’ve never really thought of them as an enterprise product anyway,” she said. “So I think it’s smart for them to continue to push on the consumer piece.”
Sean’s Hands-On Take: Fun, But Not Sticky
O’Kane, who had already been testing Muse for a couple of weeks, offered a more skeptical assessment of its staying power. He described Muse as essentially Meta’s own ground-up version of technology it acquired from OpenClaw, an earlier AI agent breakthrough that demonstrated how agents could handle real-world tasks through simple text conversation.
One of the first things Muse did for O’Kane was scan for unclaimed funds he didn’t know he had, a suggestion baked directly into the app. “Surprise, surprise, there were some for me,” he said, noting a check was already on its way in the mail. Still, he was quick to qualify the win. “That ends pretty quickly, right? That was a one-time shot, but it’s not a thing that’s repeatable. That’s more like a party trick-type thing.”
When Korosec pushed back, suggesting that kind of immediate value could itself drive popularity, O’Kane pointed to a bigger obstacle standing in the way: genuine Meta trust issues among users asked to hand over sensitive financial information.
Meta Trust Issues: Do You Trust the Company With Your Money?
O’Kane explained that Muse’s more sustainable long-term value would come from connecting directly to users’ real financial lives, credit cards, Gmail accounts, and other sensitive data, functioning similarly to tools like Rocket Money that identify unused subscriptions or duplicate charges. But that’s exactly where deeper trust concerns kick in.
Interestingly, O’Kane noted that Muse initially treated him like a stranger rather than immediately pulling in his existing Facebook, Instagram, or Threads data, which made him more comfortable using it at first. “I didn’t feel like Meta had everything on me already,” he said. But as usage continued, the app clearly worked to pull users deeper into its ecosystem, gradually learning more personal information over time.
O’Kane admitted he doesn’t know if he’ll ever trust Meta the same way he trusts other companies with sensitive data. He drew a direct comparison to Apple’s newly improved Siri, which he’d been using extensively after a recent iPhone upgrade. “I just trust Apple more with that really sensitive information,” he said, “not only trust it with the information from a cybersecurity perspective, but from the fact that its business is not to sell me a bunch of crappy ads.”
He didn’t hold back describing Meta’s core business model as the central problem. “Meta’s business is to sell you ads,” he said. “And yes, they’ll make the argument that the more they know about you, the more accurate and interesting the ads will be, wake me up when we get to that fever dream.”
Beyond the Novelty, What’s Actually Useful?
Setting aside the one-time financial win, O’Kane said he hasn’t found much else about Muse that feels genuinely useful day to day. Still, he acknowledged the app’s deliberately consumer-friendly framing, exactly as Ha had suggested earlier in the conversation, likely explains why so many people are talking about it right now, even if lasting usage remains an open question shaped heavily by these unresolved Meta trust issues.