Meta Muse walkthrough: connect Gmail and Calendar, its own browser, Soul and Memory, and a subscription audit

What Meta itself says

Meta's launch announcement describes Muse as running on a dedicated secure computer with its own browser (the "Muse Secure VM"), checking with you before sensitive actions, remembering what matters to you (and forgetting specific things when asked), and checking out with Link by Stripe using a one-time-use card so your real card details stay hidden. It is rolling out in the US on iOS, Android and muse.ai, with WhatsApp messaging, free for most needs with paid plans for more. The announcement does not describe the Gmail and Calendar permission screens, the "Soul" label or the exact button names below; those come from the presenter's own run, on her version of the app, and may change.

Setup, step by step

1. Download Muse from the app store (she searches for Meta Muse; the logo is a small squiggle), connect it to your main Facebook account and tap Get started.
2. Allow notifications. The agent is meant to ping you when something comes up. It offers some names you can pick or keep as "Muse"; you can rename it later.
3. Connect Gmail and Google Calendar when the popup appears (or ask for it). Read each permission screen. In her run the Gmail grant let Muse read mail and unsubscribe from senders but not delete email; the Calendar grant did allow deleting events. You can connect several Gmail accounts and several calendars, such as work, personal and family.
4. Start with a small real task. Her friend asked whether anything was on the family calendar on October 23rd, then asked Muse to add a concert without giving a time or place. Muse created an all-day tentative event; a second prompt told it to look up the concert, and it browsed the web, found a start time and venue, and updated the invite.
5. Watch the pill at the top. It shows what Muse is doing right now, the way a chat tool shows tool use.
6. Add a payment method only if you want purchases. Ask Muse in plain language how to let it pay; it showed a Link by Stripe connection popup.

Its own browser, and how to step in

• When Muse needs the web it shows a popup before it opens a browser (her example was Amtrak's site for a Washington-to-New York train). She stresses this is not your laptop: Muse uses its own virtual machine with a persistent browser, so each user's Muse has a separate machine. This matches Meta's Secure VM description.
• Take control of browser lets you click into that virtual browser, for example to log in or type something Muse doesn't have, and then hand it back.
• A stop button ends a task that is going wrong; the X in the top right closes the display but leaves the task running, and you can queue another task while it works.
• It isn't flawless: on the train search it first missed the faster Acela option, and she had to ask for it.

Where things live in the app

• Top left: your chat threads, a main chat plus side chats. Tap the avatar for four icons: a task list (most recent first, tap any task to read every action it took), approvals, upcoming items such as reminders, and a fingerprint icon for Soul and memory.
• Soul is essentially its system instructions: personality and style, such as concise, funny or flowery. Memory holds facts and preferences about you (family, where you split your time). She recommends filling both in.
• Bottom bar: main chat; a news-style feed tailored to you that you can heart and comment on; a light bulb of suggested ideas based on your conversations; a check mark for goals; and a media folder for generated images. Three dots at the top right open the phone's files.
• Ideas to recurring tasks. Tapping an idea opens a "Let's do it" popup, and she notes a toggle there to run it as a recurring task, for example weekly concert searches or daily fare checks.
• Goals. Put goals such as moving to London or going to the gym five days a week in the goals tab; she says they change what Muse recommends, so use real ones.
• Natural language works for settings. After tapping the pencil to change the avatar or name, she notes you can simply type "change avatar to a pink hippo". Her friend made a sloth and renamed it Flash. She also suggests asking it to find an earlier conversation, or to use more emoji reactions than the single thumbs up.
• The task log showed a step labelled "adding cron". That simply means it was setting up a schedule, such as every Monday at 9am.

The subscription audit

The idea she liked best: Muse asks what you want to unsubscribe from before it acts, since it can't guess whether a $1,000 a year service is loved or a $2 one is a waste. Expect an interview on early tasks; answering by typing or dictating makes it more useful. The result was a list of subscriptions with renewal dates, including autopay on a card whose notices had gone to a buried folder and a free trial that had converted to paid. Her friend cancelled several, including Clear, which she says saved over $300 a year, and over $1,000 a year in all. Those are the presenter's figures for one user, not a typical result.

Gotchas & Caveats

• Treat payment as higher risk. Her view: connecting email and calendar is fairly low risk, while a wallet or work systems are higher. Telling an agent "never spend over $50" may not be honoured, and she wouldn't trust it yet. Keep a little friction in purchases.
• Calendar permission includes deleting events. Check the permission screen before approving.
• This is a first-run walkthrough with a non-technical tester, on an early version of a product that is still changing; button names and permissions may differ in your version. Meta's announcement is the source for availability and plans.
• The proactive suggestions are the selling point and also the privacy trade-off: they work because Muse reads your mail, calendar and conversations.

Key Takeaways

• Connect one thing at a time and read each permission; Calendar allowed deleting events in her run.
• Fill in Soul (how it should talk) and Memory (who you are) first, then add real goals.
• You can watch, stop or take over Muse's browser, and a task keeps running if you close its display.
• Start with a read-only audit such as subscriptions before handing it your wallet.