s Meta emerges from rebooting its AI strategy, it's become clear that it's playing a different game than the other AI labs. It looks like it could be working.

At Meta Connect 2026 this week at the Meta headquarters in Menlo Park, California, we learned a lot more about the strategy Meta is deploying to earn a role in the AI ecosystem. Over the past few weeks, Meta's personal AI agent, Muse, has gone viral and become the No. 1 most downloaded app on Apple's App Store.

At Meta Connect, Muse was part of virtually every product line and every marketing pitch. Meta made it very clear that Muse is the centerpiece of its AI strategy, using both its AI models and its devices to serve the Muse strategy.

New developments include:

• Voice Mode: You'll soon be able to have natural voice interactions with Muse similar to ChatGPT Voice Mode and Siri AI, where you can interrupt it up and talk more conversationally. You'll be able to design and customize the voice based on talking speed, style, and accent.
• Realtime Avatar: Meta already gave its AI agent a more friendly consumer vibe by launching avatars that you can name and customize. It announced the next stage of that at Connect with the upcoming rollout of interactive avatars, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated on-stage near the beginning of the keynote.
• Partner connectors: Meta announced a long list of partners that will be launching connectors for Muse, including GitHub, Box, Granola, Notion, PayPal, Instacart, Walmart, Best Buy, Gap, Dick's Sporting Goods, Wayfair, Michael Kors, and more.
• Computer use on Mac app: Meta has already launched a Mac desktop app (no Windows or Linux yet) and next it will be launching Computer Use, which will let you access other apps and sites that don't have connectors, among other things.
• Its own email address: Muse will soon get a dedicated email address that you can use for communicating with it, along with allowing it to do specific work on your behalf without using your email.
• Hands-free on AI glasses: Meta says you'll "soon" be able to call on your personal Muse agent by simply saying its name from Meta AI glasses and then asking it questions or assigning it tasks. If you use it from Meta AI glasses with cameras then you'll also be able to give it access to the cameras and ask it questions about things you're seeing.
• Charm pendant: The biggest surprise at the end of the Meta Connect keynote was Zuckerberg announcing a square AI pendant on keychain so that you will be able to access your Muse agent anywhere. Think of it as the AI hardware gadget for those who don't want to wear glasses. It will have a 2-inch OLED screen to see the Realtime Avatar of your muse, along with 5G for connectivity, two cameras, a fingerprint sensor, and mics and speakers. It's about the size of an AirPods case.

In the keynote, Meta's chief AI office, Alexandr Wang, also shared news of the company's next big leap forward in intelligence. He said, "Soon, we're dropping the most capable model we've ever trained. It's going to help our entire model family get smarter and more useful for everyone, including the models that power Muse."

Our Deeper View

Downloads of the Muse app are currently outpacing the meteoric launch of the ChatGPT iOS app in spring of 2023, but there's one big caveat. Meta runs one of the world's most powerful advertising platforms with Facebook and Instagram and it has been using it to drive massive numbers of downloads. It's smart and tells us a lot of consumers are interested in AI agents, but it doesn't tell us how many of them are actually setting up their own AI agent and starting to use it. OpenAI has shifted away from consumer apps in 2026 to focus on coding and enterprise like rival Anthropic, as both look to drive revenue and business model growth ahead of massive IPOs. Meanwhile, Meta has a treasure chest of revenue from its advertising business that it can use to play the long game on consumer AI. It also has the consumer relationships and the in-house expertise for running consumer brands, and it shows in how friendly it has made Muse—by far, the easiest agent to get up and running. The big question, of course, will be trust. Meta will need to convince consumers to trust it with some of their most important and most private data in order for its agent to have the context it needs to be effective. While it's good to see Meta taking steps like the Muse Secure VM to ensure privacy, it's going to need to demonstrate consistently that it's making privacy and security a top priority. That's because trust comes in on foot and goes out on horseback, as the saying goes. And given Meta's challenging track record, the company will need to change the narrative and entice some people to come back in.

Disclaimer: Jason Hiner's travel to Meta Connect 2026 was paid for by Meta. The Deep View's coverage is editorially independent from the companies we cover.