Muse review: The personal AI agent that gets consumer UX right

<p>I spent a few hours putting Meta’s Muse, its new personal AI agent, through a real first-pass test: onboarding, calendar management, goal setting, a one-shot family morning newsletter, browser-based shopping, and the animated avatar that honestly surprised me.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>What you’ll learn:</strong></p><ol><li>Why Muse is the best-designed personal agent I’ve tested, and what specifically made it feel that way</li><li>The one-shot family PDF Muse produced that Claude and Codex never quite nailed</li><li>How Muse’s permission model works, and why it’s different from every other agent I’ve used</li><li>Why I set up a sleep training goal in Muse, and what it revealed about agent tone</li><li>The activity feed feature I immediately wished Codex and Claude Code had</li><li>Where Muse failed, and what it says about the limits of this category right now</li><li>The animated avatar decision that showed me what top-of-craft AI product design actually looks like</li></ol><p>—</p><p><strong>Brought to you by:</strong></p><p><a href="https://www.optimizely.com/howIAI" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer"><strong>Optimizely</strong></a>—Your AI agent orchestration platform for marketing and digital teams</p><p><a href="https://openart.ai/suite/chat?utm_source=online&utm_medium=influencer&utm_campaign=infl-howiai-ga-na-acq-web" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer"><strong>OpenArt</strong></a>—An all-in-one AI creation platform for images, videos, music, audio, and more</p><p>—</p><p><strong>In this episode, we cover:</strong></p><p>(00:00) What Muse is and who it’s actually built for</p><p>(04:41) Signing in and the onboarding flow</p><p>(07:16) The activity feed and its task lineage</p><p>(08:24) First real task: managing the family calendar and deleting soccer practice</p><p>(09:48) Requesting a morning newsletter PDF</p><p>(14:29) The personalized news feed and how I set it up</p><p>(16:05) The “Ideas” feature as an out-of-the-box prompt library</p><p>(17:10) Setting up personal goals (water, shoes, and sleep training)</p><p>(21:40) Library: documents, websites, images, videos, and podcasts</p><p>(23:11) Quick recap and what I love</p><p>(23:56) Activity feed design deep dive: tool calls and step-by-step lineage</p><p>(25:18) How Muse handles permissions</p><p>(26:12) The animated avatar: Polly becomes Slime, the teal dragon</p><p>(29:34) Browser use test: shopping for New Balance 9060s (not great)</p><p>(31:15) Browser use test 2: buying IMAX tickets for <em>The Odyssey</em> (much better)</p><p>(33:34) TL;DR and what I’ll actually use Muse for going forward</p><p>—</p><p><strong>Tools referenced:</strong></p><p>• Muse: <a href="https://muse.ai/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://muse.ai/</a></p><p>• Stripe Link (payment method featured in Muse): <a href="https://link.com/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://link.com</a></p><p>• 1Password (future Muse integration mentioned): <a href="https://1password.com/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://1password.com</a></p><p>• OpenClaw (Claire’s previous personal agent setup): <a href="https://openclaw.ai/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://openclaw.ai/</a></p><p>• Grok Bot (Grok-based agent from prior stack): <a href="https://x.ai/news/introducing-grok-bot" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://x.ai/news/introducing-grok-bot</a></p><p>• Codex (OpenAI coding agent, comparison point): <a href="https://openai.com/codex" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://openai.com/codex</a></p><p>• NotebookLM (Google, comparison to Muse’s podcast generation): <a href="https://notebooklm.google.com/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://notebooklm.google.com</a></p><p>—</p><p><strong>Where to find Claire Vo:</strong></p><p>ChatPRD: <a href="https://www.chatprd.ai/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://www.chatprd.ai/</a></p><p>Website: <a href="https://clairevo.com/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://clairevo.com/</a></p><p>LinkedIn: <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://www.linkedin.com/in/clairevo/</a></p><p>X: <a href="https://x.com/clairevo" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://x.com/clairevo</a></p><p>—</p><p>Production and marketing by <a href="https://penname.co/" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://penname.co/</a>. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email jordan@penname.co.</p>