Meta puts its Muse agent on a keychain⁠.

Meta is making a small device for its Muse agent, called the Muse Charm, which can be worn on a string.¹ Mark Zuckerberg announced it at the company's annual Meta Connect conference.¹ Muse launched in early September, and Meta has pitched it as a way to let AI book appointments, write emails and buy things for people.¹

The Charm has a screen of roughly two inches, navigated with a thumb, with a customisable Muse character at its centre.¹ A built-in 5G modem lets it reach Muse without Wi-Fi, though it cannot make calls.¹ Zuckerberg said Muse would also soon be available across Meta's smart glasses.¹ He said the company had shifted its focus to building devices for what he called personal superintelligence.¹

Muse has drawn millions of downloads, and some analysts have called it possibly the biggest app launch in the US since ChatGPT.¹ Investors lifted shares in partners such as Shopify and marked down companies seen as exposed, including Booking and Intuit.¹ Meta said it will make money from Muse by taking a small fee from transactions.²

The analysts are not all convinced.¹ Linda Sui of Smart Analytics Global said she would be cautious about its mass-market potential unless it offers something phones, watches, earbuds or glasses cannot.¹ Similar gadgets have struggled, and the Rabbit R1 flopped after a noisy launch in early 2024.¹ TechCrunch lists the Ai Pin and the Friend pendant among the AI hardware that did not take off, and says reactions to the Charm so far have been mixed.²

TechCrunch reads the Charm as a fashion object first, aimed at younger buyers who already hang bag charms and old Apple Watches from their bags.² It also points to Meta's record on privacy, including its settlement with the FTC over making users' private information public without consent.²

The agent wants your checkout

Set the gadget aside. The keychain is a way to keep people talking to Muse, and Meta has said how it gets paid: a cut when Muse buys something. That means Meta's interest is in Muse completing purchases, bookings and orders, including from firms like yours. If you sell online, some of your customers may soon arrive as an agent acting for a person rather than the person themselves. It is worth knowing whether your checkout, your booking system and your terms would cope with that, and who you would be dealing with if an order went wrong.

None of the reporting gives a UK price, a UK release date or a word from a British regulator, so we cannot say when the Charm reaches shops here. The market is also still arguing about whether anyone wants a separate AI gadget at all. We would watch the fee, not the charm.

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• A British start-up sells video game data to AI labs

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• Attacks on UK colleges and universities rise by two thirds

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• NetApp plans to buy British AI storage firm PEAK:AIO

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