AITechMetaMeta’s AI agent is a cute little guy who’s great at spending my moneyMuse did a decent job with my to-do list, but boy is it handy with a credit card.by Allison JohnsonSep 23, 2026, 7:00 PM UTCShareGiftAn adorable little bear that wants to help you buy things.AITechMetaMeta’s AI agent is a cute little guy who’s great at spending my moneyMuse did a decent job with my to-do list, but boy is it handy with a credit card.by Allison JohnsonSep 23, 2026, 7:00 PM UTCShareGiftAllison Johnson is a senior reviewer with over a decade of experience writing about consumer tech. She has a special interest in mobile photography and telecom. Previously, she worked at DPReview.Modern life comes with an unending, auto-populating to-do list.It never ceases to amaze me how I can be doing nothing at all, minding my own business, and suddenly something needs to be taken care of. You’re telling me a tree branch fell in the backyard and now I have to figure out what to do with it?
The tree just assigned me homework? Oh, our trash collection company canceled our account out of nowhere and now I have to send email about it? Repeatedly? Totally unfair.These are the things that we’ve been told for years that AI will help us with.
We’ll all have a smart virtual assistant to triage and handle the tedious tasks we’d rather not face. If you believe Meta, that future is available right now in the form of Muse, its AI agent for the masses. I put it to the test doing exactly what it’s advertised to do: taking care of tedious crap I’ve been putting off for ages. And it worked better than I expected — especially when there was a credit card transaction to be made.It was dizzying watching Marley spin up virtual browser windows chasing down my requestsMarley — one of the suggested names you can give Muse’s avatar — had been pinging me all of last week.
It wanted me to know all the ways it could be useful; I was too busy to engage with it. But I sat down with it this week and set it to work on a task. And while it worked on that task, I gave it another. Then another.
The thing about AI agents is that they’re most useful when you use them in parallel with each other. Or that’s the theory I was working on. In reality, it was dizzying watching Marley spin up virtual browser windows chasing down my requests. I went with a generically cute snowman-meets-puppy avatar that Meta suggested at setup, and Marley tapped cheerfully on a keyboard as it worked its way through my commands.In the span of a morning, I gave it the following tasks to help me out with.
None of them were critical; mostly they were the kinds of pebble-in-your-shoe annoyances I’d put off for weeks, months, or maybe years. Here’s how it went.Task: Follow up with the landscaper working on a bid for our backyard renovationEffort rating: Extremely lowTime I have been putting it off: Two weeksWas Marley able to complete it? YesI asked Marley to help me nudge the person I’ve been emailing at a local landscaping company. I’m expecting them to price out some yard renovations for us, so Marley requested access to my Gmail to check on the status of that project.
It confirmed that more time had passed than the landscaper initially estimated the bid would take, and drafted a rather snippy but wordy email. “Make it shorter,” I said. To be clear: As a rule, I do not use AI writing tools. Definitely not in my work, and not even for email. What’s the point?
Just don’t send email if you’re going to have a robot write it. In fact, I think we should abolish email. Anyway, I broke my own rule for testing purposes; hitting send on that message made me cringe.Task: Buy a replacement steam wand assembly for my espresso machineEffort rating: LowTime I have been putting it off: [redacted] yearsWas Marley able to complete it? MostlyMy Breville Barista Express has held up spectacularly for six years and counting, but it isn’t immune from user error.
I took the steam wand apart to clean it a few years back and tore the little silicone washer that goes inside of it. Instead of ordering a new one, I just shoved it back into place and screwed the thing back together. It works okay, but every few months when I’m cleaning the machine it nags at my conscience. It’s probably why the hot water dispenser drips sometimes when I run the steam, too.
Ordering a new steam wand assembly costs like 7 bucks and is as difficult as entering my credit card number on Breville’s website. Naturally, I put it off for an unreasonable amount of time.I opened up my chat with Marley and told it what I needed; it found the part and added it to a shopping cart. I had to finish up the order myself, but it’s done and the part will be here in five to seven business days.Task: Downgrade my security system account to the cheaper oneEffort rating: Medium (requires a phone call)Time I have been putting it off: A year? Two years???Was Marley able to complete it?
Not fullyI approved Marley to log into my account, which also required me to verify my email. While I was making the trip to my inbox I saw I had a follow-up to my follow-up with the landscaper. He was apologetic for the delay and I felt a little bad about the slightly abrupt tone of the email Marley sent. I wrote a friendlier reply the old-fashioned way.With access to my account, Marley reported back what I already knew: You have to call the company to change your plan.
Muse wasn’t able to make a phone call for me, though apparently that ability is in the works. This seems like the logical next frontier for these AI agents, and also a weird future to consider. I call the company and answer a few questions from their robot before I’m routed to a human. No doubt there’s a future soon where Marley talks to the security company’s robot before any human being enters the chat.
Or more likely in the short term, a human in a call center talks to the other company’s robot before eventually getting to another human in a call center, which feels even weirder. But surely the end state is that my robot will just talk to their robot and they’ll do business without any intervention at all. Anyway, a nice guy answered and made the change to my account. I think he was real.Task: Contact a junk removal company to get rid of a fallen tree branch in the backyardEffort rating: MediumTime I have been putting it off: A weekWas Marley able to complete it?
MostlyThe tree branch is a real problem I need to deal with. It didn’t do any damage, but it’s big enough that it’ll either take an afternoon to hack apart and haul to the dump or requires a visit from a junk removal service. Marley was most useful here — it set off looking through listings for hauling services and highlighted a few in the area. It asked for my address, phone number, and a photo of the tree limb, and used that information to put together requests for quotes from a couple of companies using online form submissions.
I got a text back from one company not long after, and confirmed a time the following day for tree limb removal. Very little was required on my part, and assuming the tree branch is gone by this time tomorrow, I’ll consider this mission accomplished for Muse.Task: Shop for camping kitchen gear, either as a set or assembled piece by pieceEffort rating: MediumTime I have been putting it off: A few daysWas Marley able to complete it? YesIf our wallets were already defenseless in the era of one-click checkout, we’re so cooked when AI agent shopping truly arrives. I gave Marley some requirements for my outdoor cooking setup and it set out finding the necessary items.
It made an attempt to access Amazon and was roundly blocked, complete with a spicy message about AI agents violating terms of service. Anyway, it found what I was looking for between OXO’s own website and Walmart.You really can’t go wrong with OXO stuff.Kudos to Marley for shopping local.While I was at it, I wanted to ad
