Meta’s Muse and OpenAI’s Dots bring AI agents to mainstream users

Meta’s Muse and OpenAI’s Dots are part of a new push to bring always-on AI agents to mainstream consumers and businesses. The agents are presented as animated mascots and can take on tasks such as restaurant reservations and inbox triage. OpenAI also offers specialist Dots for marketing, legal work, and accounting. Muse is free, while Dots are paid.

In an interview with The Verge’s Nilay Patel, senior AI reporter Hayden Field described 2026 as the beginning of a more useful era for consumer AI agents. She pointed to OpenClaw, an always-on agent created by Peter Steinberger, as an influential example. Field said it drew interest despite privacy and security issues. OpenAI hired Steinberger, and the company later introduced Dots. Meta had been developing Muse and released it earlier.

Both products are pitched as personal assistants that can handle tasks such as booking flights and dinner reservations or buying gifts. Dots is also positioned for work tasks. The interview describes an agent as an AI model connected to a system that lets it use a computer to complete complex, multistep tasks on a person’s behalf.

The discussion also raises questions about whether people will trust agents with sensitive information, including credit card details, email inboxes, and data stored on hard drives. The source says it is not clear whether most people want to share that information to enable this kind of computing.