Muse Voice, a feature that allows users to call or video chat with Muse, Meta’s consumer AI agent, is now available to everyone in the United States, the company announced Thursday.
First introduced at Meta’s Connect developer conference in September, this video chat feature includes new AI models, Muse Realtime Avatar and Muse Realtime Voice technologies, which help power the digital avatars that chat with users.
While other AI competitors offer voice chat functionality, Meta’s Muse offers a cute animated avatar (nicknamed Jolly) that users can interact with to ask questions and request tasks to be handled on their behalf. Users can also freely customize their avatars to resemble people, animals, or other characters.
The company believes that anthropomorphizing Muse in this way will help consumers feel more connected to the AI agent. That connection can become even stronger when you start having live conversations with AI agents.
Mehta said when Muse’s avatar speaks, it uses “subtle facial expressions and gestures” to match the tone of the conversation. (Muse doesn’t actually “see” you, but it hears you and reacts based on your conversation.)
News of this development was announced by Meta’s chief AI officer Alexandr Wang in a blog post and on X, who shared a demo of Muse in action. In the video, Wang joked about how he liked to post memes on X, and said Muse may have gotten into trouble with his boss. His muse, a fluffy white dog, responds with a suggestion that Meta add a disclaimer to memes that could be misconstrued as endorsing something risqué. (Ha!)
The additional support for video chat and calls comes just ahead of Meta’s plans to launch a Tamagotchi-like wearable device for the Muse AI agent by the end of the year. When the device arrives, a digital avatar appears on a small screen and the user can talk to an agent, who can respond or perform tasks on the user’s behalf.
Meta says real-time conversations are supported on mobile, web, and Mac, and will later be included in the company’s AI glasses and upcoming “Muse Charm” hardware devices.
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