On Wednesday, Meta announced a set of new capabilities for its viral Muse assistant and said it will integrate the agent into upcoming product iterations — from handheld AI devices to advanced smart glasses.
Why it matters
Meta has invested billions of dollars in both AI and VR. The company is betting that bringing those technologies together will be essential to making that investment pay off.
New Muse features and retail partners
- Muse now supports live video chat, real-time voice conversations with customizable voice options, and Meta will assign an email address to each person’s agent.
- Meta announced new retail partners including Walmart, Best Buy, Gap, Sephora and Wayfair. That growing list highlights the contrast with Amazon, which has chosen not to allow Muse on its platform.
- The Muse announcements coincided with a recent selloff in Meta shares as investors expressed concern that Muse could reduce the direct stickiness between brands and customers.
Hardware rollouts and pricing
- Meta said Muse will arrive on its AI glasses “in the coming months,” without offering a more specific date.
- The company introduced audio-only glasses intended for users who want open-air sound and a constantly available AI assistant without the cost or privacy concerns of camera-equipped models. These new audio glasses will be available later in October and start at $349.
- Meta is also updating the Meta Ray-Ban and Meta Glasses lines with modest improvements and new designs.
- On the VR side, Meta previewed a much slimmer headset priced at $1,299 that is due next spring. The new Meta VR glasses move computing, battery and storage into a separate wired puck, enabling a 5K display in glasses that weigh just 100 grams.
- The headset will be controlled entirely by voice, hand gestures and eye gaze, and will support a range of apps across gaming, entertainment and productivity. Meta said more than 75 hand-tracked games will be available at launch; older Quest titles will still run but will require users to strap on controllers.
Zuckerberg on Muse as a personal “superintelligence” and monetization
During his Meta Connect keynote, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, said, "I expect that Muse is going to grow into the personal superintelligence that billions of people around the world are going to use to accomplish their goals and improve their lives."
Zuckerberg described Meta’s business model for Muse as novel: "We believe that Muse will make you money, and we're standing behind this by making Muse free for a huge number of tokens, with the expectation that over time we will profit by taking a small fee from transactions."
Privacy measures: confidential VM and Private Processing
Meta has said it is developing a confidential virtual machine option for the Muse assistant. On Wednesday the company added that it is also preparing a "Private Processing" system for AI glasses, intended to protect data even while it is being processed in the cloud, similar to Apple’s Private Cloud Compute. Meta says the platform is working and hopes to bring it to glasses by the end of the year, though it has not committed to a launch date.
Big picture
After years of heavy investment in glasses and AI, Meta is now positioning those bets to converge: AI capabilities like Muse are becoming central to the company’s vision for a new platform built around wearable devices. As Alex Himmel, Meta’s vice president of wearables, put it, AI is likely to enable the next major platform and is driving convergence between VR and AR into glasses.
Between the lines
Meta’s announcements combine new product functionality, partnerships and privacy-focused technical measures with a business strategy that initially subsidizes usage and anticipates future transaction-based revenue. How consumers and partners respond will influence whether Muse becomes the widely used personal assistant Meta envisions.
