Meta's Muse hits iPad a month after launch, 6.6M installs

Meta has been pushing Muse out quickly. The assistant first launched on iOS and Android on September 8, and the iPad version arrived just a month later. That speed is notable when set against the roughly 15 years it took Instagram to get an iPad app, though Meta may have had an easier time here because Muse's text-heavy interface makes image and video formatting less of a hurdle.

The company is also broadening what Muse can reach. It has been adding partners that show up in Muse as "connectors," which users can selectively sign in to depending on how much of their online life they want an AI agent to handle. With the iPad release, that list gained several small-business tools and Meta ad account connectors, plus Notion and Granola. Meta has separately announced more retail partners, such as Best Buy, Gap, Sephora, Walmart, and Wayfair, whose sites the agent can shop and transact on users' behalf.

One unresolved issue is that some websites still mistake agents for bots and block their access. Meta's answer, announced Tuesday, is an open standard that would let personal AI agents identify themselves to businesses, which could help businesses separate good bots from bad. The outcome hinges on whether that standard is widely adopted, and on whether the new retail and small-business connectors work reliably enough for users to trust an agent with purchases and account access.