Meta’s Muse AI is exploding in popularity—and already drawing heated backlash from another tech giant

Meta's new AI agent app, Muse, is rapidly gaining traction among consumers, swiftly surpassing ChatGPT as the top free app on Apple's App Store in recent days. Muse, which utilizes Meta's latest Muse Spark AI model, connects users to various services that its AI agent handles autonomously, ranging from booking appointments and shopping to organizing calendars. The app requires users to grant access to their accounts on their phones in exchange for the AI agent's services.

However, Muse's swift rise to prominence has not been met with universal acclaim. Amazon has blocked Meta's assistant from accessing its online store, citing that continued access by an unauthorized AI agent violates Amazon's Conditions of Use, which its customers have agreed to. Amazon stated that Meta never sought permission to access its site.

Palo Alto Networks CEO Nikesh Arora predicted that other major tech giants like Apple, Google, and TikTok would soon follow Meta's lead in developing similar consumer AI agents. He emphasized that every app that serves as a service, marketplace, or commerce platform will need to open its Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) for consumer agents to interact. Smaller players have no choice but to either open their APIs or face increased transaction costs imposed by distribution aggregators.

Muse's breakthrough success represents a significant victory for Meta, which has struggled to compete with industry leaders like OpenAI and Anthropic. The app's popularity and Amazon's swift response highlight the rapid transformation of the consumer space by agentic technology. Muse's release, just as Anthropic and OpenAI unveiled cheaper versions of their models, and as Apple introduced its revamped Siri in the latest iOS update, underscores the transformative power of AI agents in the consumer sector.

The release of Muse raises critical questions about who controls the shopping and user interfaces Meta aims to access and how major companies will agree to such access. For Amazon, Muse poses a threat as it bypasses the traditional process of users visiting the company's website or app and encountering ads, which serve as a crucial revenue driver.

Amazon has taken legal action against similar issues in the past, including a lawsuit against Perplexity over its Comet AI tool, which could access Amazon accounts like Muse does. The case was recently dismissed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which found that users ultimately chose to access Amazon via Perplexity's bot.

Amazon's own shopping agent, Buy for Me, performs tasks similar to Muse's. The company has allowed brands to opt out of the feature, but this requires action since brands are automatically opted in. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has also revealed that the company is exploring AI shopping agent partnerships with third-party companies.

Privacy concerns are likely to be a significant factor for consumers considering assistants like Muse. These assistants offer personalized features, such as allowing users to name their AI agent, but require access to sensitive information like bank accounts to function effectively. Meta claims that user logins are kept secret and that online purchases utilize a one-time card number that conceals actual card details.

Nevertheless, Meta has been embroiled in previous privacy issues, including multiple proposed class-action lawsuits related to its smart glasses. The company has disputed these allegations.

Muse's emergence is particularly timely for Meta: CEO Mark Zuckerberg is set to unveil updates to the company's smart glasses during its annual Connect event in Menlo Park, California, on Wednesday.