Meta's Muse Is Better at Surveilling Than Helping Me
By Reece Rogers | Gear | September 20, 2026
The Muse app continues Meta's trend of opting users into data collection for AI training. It also nudges you to share your bank account, email, and passport information.
Overview
Meta's Muse app represents the company's latest push into consumer AI—but it also continues a familiar pattern: opting users into data collection for AI training by default. Beyond that, the app actively encourages users to hand over sensitive personal details, including bank account information, email addresses, and even passport data.
A Familiar Playbook
Muse follows in the footsteps of Meta's broader AI strategy, where user data fuels model training whether or not users fully understand what they're consenting to. The result, as this review argues, is an assistant that feels less like a helpful tool and more like another surveillance surface.
Key Concerns
- Default data collection: Users are opted into AI training data pipelines without an explicit, affirmative choice.
- Sensitive data prompts: The app nudges users toward sharing highly personal information, including financial and identity documents.
- Trust gap: For a product meant to help users, the balance tilts heavily toward Meta's data interests rather than user benefit.
The Bottom Line
Meta's Muse raises the same questions that have followed the company's AI ambitions from the start: Who is this really serving—the user, or the data pipeline behind it? Until those defaults change, the app's surveillance instincts will continue to outshine its usefulness.
via Wired AI