Commentary: Zuckerberg’s ‘Tamagotchi-like’ AI could be Meta’s iPod moment

NEW YORK: Mark Zuckerberg is on to something. Hot on the heels of Meta’s hugely well-received launch of its Muse personal AI agent, Zuckerberg announced on Wednesday evening (Sep 23) the next phase: a “Tamagotchi-like” pendant for interacting with the cuddly assistant on the go. It’s slated to be out in time for Christmas.

Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman described some of Muse Charm’s features: A virtual Muse character appears at the centre of the screen, and users can customise its appearance, outfits, voice and other attributes. The device can be worn with a wrist strap, carried in a pocket or attached to a bag or keychain with a lanyard. A translucent case allows users to see the internal circuitry through the back and sides.

And then, what I predict will be a masterstroke:

Two users with Muse Charms can also allow their devices to recognise and interact with each other when they’re placed nearby.

How cute! For a man who in the past has been mocked for coming across as a robotic, out-of-touch nerd, Zuckerberg has struck a tone with the Muse assistant that has already set his company’s effort apart from his competitors – and prompted, I suspect, some hasty strategic rethinking.

STYLISH AND INNOVATIVE RECASTING

Perhaps Meta’s secret is Alexandr Wang. The most-talked-about hire in Silicon Valley last year, Wang leads Meta’s artificial-intelligence efforts (and, I predict, will one day lead the whole company).

On Wednesday, on stage at Meta’s developer conference, Wang described Meta’s achievement perfectly when he said: “It was only about six months ago that having a personal agent running on your own computer was the sign of someone who was completely AI-pilled.”

Today, by refining the technology and adding some consumer-friendly touches, Muse is to AI agents what the iPod was to MP3 players: A stylish and innovative recasting of an existing technology so it struck a chord with everyday people. The rewards for reaching the non-nerds could be enormous.

The energetic arrival of the iPod marked the rebirth of Apple as a company. Muse – whether it’s accessed through smartphone, glasses or the Charm – has the potential to do something similar for Meta.

But there are challenges. Muse’s head start will be brief. OpenAI engineers are scrambling to come up with their answer. Siri AI is finally rolling out to the iPhone and seems pretty great. Zuckerberg might get a taste of his own medicine as companies with bigger AI products simply look at what he’s done with Muse and copy the best bits.

There’s also what we might consider Meta’s “trust ceiling” – the upper limit of users prepared to give Meta the kind of access that any useful AI agent needs. Meta is asking customers to trust it more than ever before.

Some will just say no. The question is how many. A Gallup poll conducted in June suggests consumer trust in big tech companies is low and sliding. The most recent Harris Poll 100 has Meta’s reputation among US adults trailing almost all of its peers, ranked 96th, compared with Anthropic at 16th, Apple at 20th and Alphabet at 22nd.

And yet, 3.6 billion people use a Meta app every day, and the company’s playful pitch for Muse is clearly hitting differently than the doom and gloom emanating from some other AI companies. They talk about AI putting us out of jobs and maybe wiping us off the face of the Earth.

Muse is instead channelling the sentiment expressed by author Joanna Maciejewska, who wrote in 2024: “I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing, not for AI to do my art and writing so that I can do my laundry and dishes.”

A LUCRATIVE OPPORTUNITY

Muse can’t do the dishes yet. But its usefulness for routine tasks is growing by the day – each one of them presenting lucrative opportunities for Meta to make serious money.

What made the iPod so transformational for Apple wasn’t just the device but the fresh business model it enabled with iTunes, a centralised and locked-in digital music store from which Apple took a hard-negotiated cut of sales.

That was, of course, the precursor to the App Store, which expanded that concept to digital goods of all kinds, turning Apple into the richest company in the world.

Meta is well positioned to run something like that playbook again, albeit in a more crowded market. “Over time we will profit by taking a small fee from transactions” made through Muse, Zuckerberg explained in his pitch to developers on Wednesday. Behind him, a slide stated, in giant letters, “Muse makes you money.”

For the first time in Meta’s 22-year history, the company has a new business model in its sights – AI subscriptions, hardware sales, cuts of AI transactions – that could eclipse the current one. 

Today, advertising accounts for 98 per cent of Meta’s revenue. I wonder how that might look in two years if Muse does indeed cement itself as the first breakthrough consumer AI agent.