Meta's Muse feels real in a way the metaverse never did

Business Insider's Pranav Dixit at Meta Connect Pranav Dixit/Business Insider A version of this story originally appeared in the AI Insider newsletter. Sign up for Business Insider's weekly AI Insider newsletter here. My colleague Pranav Dixit attended Meta Connect this week and he stopped by AI Insider to share his thoughts with newsletter subscribers. Here's how the Q&A went down, in longer form: What was your biggest surprise while at the event? The biggest surprise was how good Meta's upcoming VR glasses were. They're not coming out until spring 2027, and they'll cost around $1,300, so they're definitely not a mass-market product yet. But after spending about half an hour with them, I walked away really impressed. I watched 3D movies, played Beat Saber, and even paired the glasses with a laptop so I suddenly had three giant virtual monitors floating in front of me. The whole thing weighs about 100 grams, and after a few minutes, you kind of stop thinking about the hardware and just use it. More than anything, it made me realize how far Meta has come. I kept thinking, this is what Apple should have released instead of the Vision Pro. It obviously won't be for everyone, especially at that price, but it was the first time I'd tried something that made me think lightweight VR glasses might actually be getting close. Which product/device were you most impressed by and why? I already use Muse quite a lot for surprisingly complex tasks. I'll ask it to place a hold on a library book, send the ebook to my Kindle, or handle little chores that would otherwise have me bouncing between apps. It feels less like using a chatbot and more like having an assistant. That's why I think bringing Muse to the glasses is such a big deal. The glasses themselves are just a tool. The real magic is being able to ask for something while you're walking down the street, cooking dinner, or driving, and have it quietly take care of it without you ever reaching for your phone. That starts to feel less like software and more like a superpower. That feature hasn't launched yet. Meta says it's coming in the next few weeks. I can't say how well it works in the real world. But if it does work well, it's the first AI glasses feature I've seen that feels genuinely useful rather than just a gimmick. Folks seem to like Muse much better than the metaverse. Why? Can anyone really explain what the metaverse was? Was it a giant virtual world we were all supposed to hang out in? The vision always felt a little fuzzy. And to experience it, you had to buy an expensive VR headset and strap it to your face. Muse is the opposite. It's an actual product you can use today. It lives on your phone, you can ask it to do things, and it actually gets things done. Meta has also been moving incredibly fast. It's building Muse into all of its glasses, signing partnerships that let it book flights, order groceries, buy products, and connect to more and more services. You can see the road map unfolding in real time. I think the biggest difference is that Muse solves a problem people already have. Everyone has little digital chores they don't want to do. The metaverse always felt like it was asking people to change their behavior. Muse fits into behavior people already have and just makes it easier. That's why this feels much more tangible. It's here now, and you can actually imagine yourself using it every day in a way that was always harder with the metaverse. Do you think Muse can become a true top-of-the-funnel platform like iOS and Google Search, with a huge user base and loads of developers? I think there's definitely potential, but it's way too early to say. One thing Meta has going for it is distribution. It already has billions of people using WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger every day, and it's now weaving Muse into all of those products, plus its glasses. That's a pretty unique advantage. But building a great AI product and building the next iPhone or Google Search are two very different things. Those became platforms because millions of developers, businesses, and consumers built their lives around them over many years. Muse is off to a promising start, but I think the real test is whether it becomes something people use dozens of times a day without even thinking about it. If it gets there, then you can start talking about it as a new computing platform. We're just not there yet Any concerns/doubts? What could make Muse fizzle or fail? Two big things I'm watching. The first is platform risk. Meta is trying to build what could become a new computing platform, but today it's still living on someone else's platforms — iOS and Android. If Apple or Google decides AI agents are becoming a competitive threat, they could change App Store or operating system rules in ways that make Muse, or AI agents more broadly, much less capable. We've seen platform owners do that before. The second is that the web wasn't really built for AI agents. It was built f