Meta Muse for Startups: What You Need to Know Before You Try It

Imagine an assistant that opens a website, fills in a form, and pays for you.

Meta says its new AI agent, Muse, can do exactly that. If you run a startup, here is what that means for you.

Meta launched Muse on September 8. Since then, it has added tools for small businesses and a new developer model. We read Meta's announcements and checked the news, and we only included facts we could confirm. When a fact comes from a news report instead of from Meta, we say so.

What Muse Actually Does

Most people know AI tools that answer questions. Muse is different because it does tasks. It can send email, book travel, fill in forms, and negotiate for you. You talk to it in the Muse app or in WhatsApp.

• Muse checks back when something changes or when it needs your approval before sending an email or making a purchase.

• It also remembers things that matter to you, and you can tell it to forget something. 

Muse runs on Muse Spark 1.3, which is Meta’s own AI model, and it lives on a private computer in Meta’s cloud that Meta calls Muse Secure VM.

Where Can You Use It, and What Does It Cost?

Muse started in the US on September 8, and it works in the Muse app, on the website muse.ai, and inside WhatsApp. Meta released a Mac app on September 17. Meta's later posts say Muse is also in Canada, and news reports say it reached Japan on October 23. Meta has not announced Muse for places like the UK, the EU, and India, so check that it works where you are before you plan anything.

Muse is free up to 100 million tokens a week. Meta’s Help Center lists two paid plans: Power at $20 a month with 500 million tokens a week, and Maximum at $100 a month with 3 billion tokens a week. A token is a small piece of text that the AI reads or writes. TechCrunch reports that you need a payment card to sign up, even for the free plan.

What It Means for Small Businesses

On September 29, Meta added Muse for Small Business. It connects to tools that many startups already use, such as Asana, Canva, Notion, QuickBooks, Shopify, Slack, Stripe, and Zoom. It also connects to Facebook Pages, Instagram business accounts, and Meta Ads accounts. Meta says nothing is published, sent, or paid for without your approval. 

Its examples include asking Muse to build a growth plan from a year of sales and campaign data, to sort your inbox, or to check your monthly finances and point out expenses that look odd.

If you make software, there is also an opening for you. Muse supports custom connections, so it can work with services that Meta does not support yet. Companies that want to partner with Meta can apply at muse.ai/platform. Nikkei Asia reports that Muse will stay free of ads, according to Meta. We did not include reports that Meta may charge sellers a fee on purchases, because we could not confirm them.

What It Means for Developers

On October 12, Meta released two new AI models, Muse Wonder and Muse Wonder Full. Developers can use Muse Wonder through the Meta Model API and Muse Code, and Muse Wonder Full is for Muse Code subscribers. Muse Wonder Full is available to Muse Code subscribers on the Power ($50/month) or Max ($200/month) plans. Meta says they are built for law, finance, health, and coding, and that a full safety report will come soon.

Meta’s developer documentation lists Muse Wonder at $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens, and the model is still in preview. Check Meta’s pricing page directly before you plan a budget.

How Meta Says It Keeps Muse Safe

Meta describes several protections. Muse works on its own computer, kept apart so that no one else's agent can reach it, and a second program called Sentinel must approve anything that goes out to the internet. Meta says Muse cannot see your passwords or payment details. Muse asks before sensitive steps and shows a record of what it has done. 

You choose which apps it connects to and how much it can do in each, and you can turn off the use of your chats for training. Meta says it does not share your chats with its ad systems. Later this year, Meta plans a "Confidential VM" locked with a key that only you hold, but that is not available today.

What the Early Problems Tell Us

Despite those protections, real security problems emerged in Muse’s first weeks.

Security firm Claroc says it found more than 6,800 Muse share links discoverable through a single passive DNS query. It checked a sample of those pages, finding most were ordinary, though a minority contained sensitive information including company revenue figures and loan paperwork.

News outlets report that Meta suspended the sharing feature on October 20, 2026, and is working to address the issue.

404 Media also reports that Meta engineers rushed to fix several security problems before launch. 404 Media reported, citing internal posts and one anonymous source, that at least one of them could have let a Muse user reach Meta’s internal systems. Meta says it keeps strengthening Muse with testing and its bug bounty program.

Separately, researcher Patrick Wardle disclosed a zero-day in Muse’s Mac app on September 21 that allowed a local process to hijack the agent’s dictation and authentication. Meta issued a hotfix the following day.

CBC reported on a user who chose "Allow always" for Muse. He says Muse then set up a sale on Facebook Marketplace and shared his home address without his knowledge. Our advice is to be careful with that setting, and to check the news again before you connect anything important.

If You Sell Online, AI Shoppers Are Here

When Muse pays, it can use Link, Stripe’s payment system. Link creates a one-time card number, so your real card details stay hidden.

Stores are reacting in different ways. Amazon blocked Muse from shopping on Amazon.com. Amazon says Meta did not tell it Muse would shop there, that Muse does not identify itself when it browses, and that it appears to store customer logins. Walmart opened a gateway for approved AI agents on October 21, and Shopify's CEO said it is working with Muse on checkout with Shop Pay.

On October 6, Meta, Sierra, Walmart, Stripe, and Shopify also announced the Personal Agent Protocol, a shared standard for how AI agents sign in at businesses. We think you should decide now whether your store will welcome AI agents, and on what terms.

A Simple 30-Day Plan

1. In week one, check whether Muse works in your country, then try it on simple tasks with no private data. Set it to ask before it acts, and turn off training on your chats. 

2. In week two, write a short rule for what company data AI agents may use. 

3. In week three, if your product has an API, look at muse.ai/platform. 

4. In week four, if you sell online, test your checkout and decide how you will treat AI shoppers. In the three posts we read, Meta did not describe team controls or certifications, so ask Meta about them before a whole team uses Muse.

Key Takeaways

• Muse is an AI agent that does tasks for you on its own private computer. 

• It is free with a weekly limit; the paid plans cost $20 and $100 a month, and a card is needed to sign up. 

• Real security problems have come up despite a strong safety design, so be careful with permissions. 

• Amazon blocked Muse while Walmart and Shopify opened up, so how you treat AI shoppers is now a business choice.

Why This Matters Even If You Never Use Muse

Soon, more customers, vendors, and teammates will use AI agents, so your product, your store, and your rules need to be ready. 

If you are building features for AI agents, MyNextDeveloper helps startups hire vetted, top-tier software engineers and AI talent who can build them safely.

TL;DR

Meta's Muse is an AI agent that does tasks for you, like booking travel, filling in forms, and paying, and it keeps working after you close the app. It works in the US and Canada, and Meta launched it in Japan too. It's free with a weekly limit, with paid plans at $20 and $100 a month. Startups can connect tools like Shopify and Stripe, and developers can use the new Muse Wonder model. Meta's safety plan looks strong, but there have been real problems, including exposed shared pages and security holes fixed before launch. Amazon blocked Muse while Walmart and Shopify opened up, so how you treat AI shoppers is now your call.

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