Apps & Consumer
Meta opens Muse Voice video chat to all US users
Meta said Thursday that Muse Voice, letting users call and video chat with its AI agent Muse, has rolled out to everyone in the U.S.
Muse Voice, introduced at Meta’s Connect conference in September, uses two new models — Muse Realtime Avatar and Muse Realtime Voice — to power an animated avatar, nicknamed Jolly, that chats with users as they ask questions or hand off tasks. Users can restyle that avatar to look more like a person, an animal, or another character.
Meta is betting that giving Muse a face, rather than just a voice interface like rival chatbots offer, will make people feel closer to the agent — a bond the company expects to deepen once users start holding live conversations with it. Meta says the avatar will use “subtle expressions and gestures” that match the tone of the conversation as it talks.
Meta’s chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, announced the rollout in a company blog post and on X, posting a demo of his own Muse avatar. In the clip, Wang joked about posting memes on X and told his Muse — rendered as a fluffy white dog — that it could have landed him in hot water with his manager; the avatar suggested adding disclaimers to any memes that might be misread as Meta endorsing something risqué.
The video-chat rollout arrives shortly before Meta’s planned launch of a Tamagotchi-like wearable built around Muse before the end of the year, which will display the avatar on a small screen so users can talk to it directly. Meta says the real-time conversations work today on mobile, web and Mac, and will later extend to its AI Glasses and an upcoming hardware device called Muse Charm.
Why it matters
Meta is betting that an avatar with a face and voice, not just a text or audio assistant, is what turns Muse from a novelty into a product people actually keep coming back to — and the hardware roadmap suggests Meta wants that bond to follow users off their phones entirely.