Meta’s Muse Revival, Frontier AI Under Threat, The Rise Of Dopamine Sites

Alex Kantrowitz (0:00)

Did Meta pull off AI's biggest comeback? Now that Muse is atop the App Store. And what does Muse's success say about Frontier AI models? Do companies actually need them to win?

Finally, we'll talk about dopamine sites. What are they and should we be using them? That's coming up on The Big Technology Podcast Friday edition right after this.

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Alex Kantrowitz (1:19)

Welcome to Big Technology Podcast Friday Edition, where we break down the news in our traditional cool-headed and nuanced format. We have a great show for you today. We're going to go deep into the success or is it a success of Meta's Muse and talk about whether this is something that will end up being the biggest story in AI this year and whether Meta is actually back. We're also going to talk about whether Meta's ability to build Muse on non-frontier models is a threat to the frontier. And finally, we're going to talk about dopamine sites, which are sites where you basically shop for things, but it's just about the experience. You hit checkout and the items don't come and it's just for that dopamine hit. Joining us as always on Friday to do it is Ranjan Roy of Margins. Ranjan, great to see you.

Ranjan Roy (2:00)

I am so excited that we're not talking about human extinction this week. And we're talking about the latest in AI products too, and not even model. We'll talk about models a little bit, I believe, at the end, but we're talking about, it's all, the product is here, the product is back, and are you Muse-pilled, Alex?

Alex Kantrowitz (2:19)

I was about to say, you know, we've been big boys, we've been clawed heads, we've been chat chaps maybe, I don't know, but are we, are we, are we Muse men, is that what we are? Or Musees? Muse mates? I don't know what's, Muse, Muse mates? Like Meta mates?

Ranjan Roy (2:33)

No?

Alex Kantrowitz (2:34)

No, that's letting them to define the persona too much. I think it's gotta be either Musees or Muse men.

But I'm willing to hear the argument for Muse mates.

Ranjan Roy (2:44)

Musees, I like, it's like Musees.

Alex Kantrowitz (2:46)

Are we Musees?

Ranjan Roy (2:48)

Okay, let's definitely get into it. I'm at Instinct, I don't even know what word starts with I, I would fill that as well. But Muse and Instinct, the last few weeks have blown my mind and I'm excited to talk about it.

Alex Kantrowitz (3:02)

Yeah, okay, so let's talk about, so as the world has been distracted by AI, basically threatening to extinct humanity, there's been a rise of these personal agents and they're actually starting to work well. And Instinct is one of them where you could basically use AI to go out and do things for you and you communicate it with it via your messaging app. And then, of course, over the past couple of weeks, since the beginning of the month, Meta has released this app called Muse, which goes out and takes action for you. And it's a consumer version of a lot of these enterprise tools that we've been seeing and it's doing pretty well. This is from the Wall Street Journal. Meta shows AI agents aren't just for business anymore. Early signs of success for Meta's new consumer focused AI agent are helping prove that AI agents aren't just the hottest thing in business technology. They may finally be gaining steam among consumers too. Just two weeks after Meta released the agent called Muse, the app to access it reached number one in the app store. And then over the weekend, X was filled with people, with posts by people praising the new agent. Shares in Meta stock even jumped 11% on Monday, the biggest one day gain since April 2025 and its highest close since October. So the success of Muse were basically like, you can go out and you can use it and ask it to do things for you.