Meta Brings Its Muse AI Agent to Apple Watch and Wear OS Smartwatches

On either watch, users can reach the agent with a voice call, a typed message or dictation. The Apple Watch version also has a complication, a shortcut on the watch face that opens Muse directly, MacRumors reported. Android Authority said it could not confirm the same shortcut on Wear OS. It also said the Wear OS app is a remote rather than a standalone agent: Muse runs on the paired phone, and the watch is used to approve tasks and check on ones already under way.

The watch apps matter because Muse is built to carry out tasks, not only to answer questions. According to TechCrunch, the agent can connect to a user's accounts to manage email, meetings and bills, book reservations, order groceries and make purchases. Agents that work in the background still need people to sign off on what they do. Moving those approvals to the wrist takes out a step, and it gives Meta another device that keeps its assistant in front of users.

Meta has not said whether purchases can be completed from the watch or must still be confirmed on the phone, according to Android Authority.

The launch also puts Meta's agent on hardware run by Apple and Google, the two companies whose operating systems Meta has long tried to escape with a platform of its own. That aim is behind the Muse Charm, a companion gadget Meta unveiled at its Connect conference in September. The Charm lets people reach Muse with a tap instead of going through AI apps on a smartphone. The watch apps are designed around the Muse character, which users can customise to look like a person, an animal or another figure, and MacRumors said they look much like the Charm.

Muse first appeared on Apple's App Store in September and passed 10 million US downloads in its first 40 days, TechCrunch reported. That made it one of only 12 mobile apps to reach the milestone, the most recent before it being Threads in July 2023.

Meta has added features quickly since then. A dedicated iPad app came out about a month before the watch apps. On November 5, US users gained the ability to video chat with their Muse avatar, which Meta says uses "subtle expressions and gestures" to match the tone of a conversation. The avatar can hear users and respond in real time, but it cannot see them. On November 6, Meta added Spaces, which it calls "custom experiences": conversations about a particular topic that appear in the app's sidebar as small apps and keep the agent focused on one goal.

Meta has not given a shipping date or price for the Muse Charm.