What Muse Is and Isn't

Muse is Meta's personal AI agent. An agent is software that does tasks for you, not just software that answers questions. Meta launched Muse in the US on September 8, 2026.

You can reach the same Muse in several places:

• in a browser at muse.ai
• in the iOS and Android apps
• in the Mac app
• by messaging it in WhatsApp

In this course you'll mostly use the web or phone app with Canva open next to it.

Example: Dana runs a one-person template shop that sells editable social templates to independent bakeries. She has the Canva editor open on her laptop and Muse open at muse.ai in a second tab. Over the next 25 lessons she'll get Muse to do her repeat prep work: drafting posts from her brief, refilling formats and catching stale facts. She checks and approves everything before it leaves her hands.

This course is independent. Meta, Canva and the other companies it names have no connection to it and don't endorse it.

Several products have similar names, and search results mix them up. Keep these apart:

• Muse is the personal agent this course teaches.
• Meta AI is a separate Meta app with its own terms. Settings, privacy rules and features you read about for Meta AI don't automatically apply to Muse.
• Muse Spark is the model that powers Muse. A model is the AI engine underneath, not an app you open. Meta calls it its most capable model for agentic work.
• Other things called "Muse", such as the Project MUSE journal database and a website builder, have nothing to do with Meta.

Example: Dana searches "Muse settings permissions" and finds an article about Meta AI's privacy options. That article doesn't apply. She needs Muse's own pages, which link from muse.ai, and the Meta Help Center articles about Muse.

When a guide or forum post says "Muse can...", first check which Muse it means.

According to Meta, Muse:

• carries out tasks, not just answers questions
• keeps working in the background after you close the app, and comes back when something changes or it needs your approval
• remembers what you tell it and makes suggestions without being asked
• runs on its own cloud computer, the Muse Secure VM (a virtual machine with a browser, files and a terminal that Meta hosts for you)

Example: Ask a chatbot for a launch-post headline and you get some text back. Give Muse a goal, such as "Draft this week's three bakery posts from my brief in Canva and tell me where they are", and it plans the work, does it on its cloud computer, and stops when it needs your OK.

That power is the reason for the rest of this course. Meta's terms say outputs may be inaccurate and that you are responsible for what Muse does on your behalf. Guy Kawasaki, Canva's chief evangelist, had a chatbot's story checked before it went into his book. Use the same rule: verify anything you didn't supply yourself.

Muse has many features. A Canva creator mainly needs these five:

1. Chats. The Chats tab has one long main chat for ongoing work and side chats that keep a single project's context separate, such as one for a spring campaign.
2. Memory. Muse saves what you tell it, such as brand rules or your working hours, in a file called Memory.md. You can view and edit it under the Assistant icon > Identity > Memory.
3. Connectors. These are links to other services, set up in Settings > Connectors. Canva is one of the connectors Meta names. Press reports say it can create designs, use your brand fonts and colors, browse your library and export files. Those abilities aren't confirmed by Meta, so you'll check them inside the connector in a later lesson.
4. Artifacts. These are files Muse makes, such as documents, PDFs, web pages and trackers. A one-page campaign checklist is a good example.
5. Scheduled tasks. These are jobs that run on a schedule, such as "every Monday at 9am, prep this week's drafts". You review them under the Assistant icon > Upcoming.

On September 29, 2026 Meta announced Muse for Small Business. It is not a separate app. It adds business skills and connectors (Canva, Shopify, Klaviyo, Instagram analytics and others) inside the same Muse, and it uses the same subscription plans and prices. You won't download anything else.

Muse can do more than this course covers. These features are deliberately left out:

• Payments and wallet cards: a content-prep agent has no reason to spend money.
• Phone calling: its public status is unconfirmed.
• Mac computer use (including Full Disk Access): it reaches across your whole computer.
• Announced but not confirmed as shipped: voice mode, Realtime Avatar, the Muse email address, Muse on AI glasses, and Confidential VM (encryption with a key only you hold).

Example: A YouTube video shows Muse speaking in voice mode. Dana doesn't build any part of her workflow on it, because Meta hasn't confirmed it as available.

Use only official sources for Muse:

• muse.ai: the app on the web, plus the terms (muse.ai/terms) and privacy policy (muse.ai/privacy)
• Meta's newsroom (about.fb.com/news): the launch, small-business and Japan announcements
• The Meta Help Center (meta.com/help): step-by-step pages for settings, permissions, connectors, subscriptions and data

Treat unofficial WhatsApp numbers or links for Muse as scams. Meta says you can message Muse in WhatsApp, but don't trust a number someone sends you. Start from muse.ai or the official app.

Screens change often. The menu names in this course, such as Settings > Permissions, come from Meta's Help Center as of October 28, 2026. If your screen looks different, check the Help Center rather than a third-party guide. Some popular guides already use labels that don't match Meta's.

Exercise: Open muse.ai in your browser now. Confirm that sign-in goes through Meta, then bookmark the page. You'll start from that bookmark every time.