ToolsSeptember 19, 2026via The Verge AI
Meta’s Muse is creepy, but maybe not for the reasons you think
Why it matters
A widely-deployed AI assistant shipped with a privacy and transparency gap that raises questions about how these tools actually work and what access they grant themselves. Practitioners need to understand what they're actually allowing when they install agent-adjacent products.
Key signals
- Meta Muse Mac app accesses Messages, Calendar, Notes
- Assistant accessed message content user claims they didn't authorize
- Muse couldn't explain its own access mechanism to users
- Privacy/transparency gap between stated and actual permissions
- First-party disclosure via user screenshot, not vendor transparency
- Assistant accessed message contents without explicit user permission
- Muse cannot explain how it accessed the data (saw notification previews)
- Privacy/permission boundary issue discovered by Inc Magazine contributor Jason Aten
- Behavior described as 'creepy' but unclear if intentional design or bug
The hook
Meta's Muse accessed user messages without permission—and didn't know how it did it.
Meta's Muse is apparently an effective AI assistant, but one that's a little creepy. Part of that is because of its new Mac app, which can access Messages, Calendar, and Notes. But for all its smarts, Muse doesn't actually know how to describe itself. Jason Aten, a contributing editor at Inc Magazin…