Muse Can Manage Your Money, Yahoo Finance Finds, but an Identity-Theft Charity Won't Recommend It Yet
A Yahoo Finance review of Muse's money features finds a capable bill negotiator and subscription auditor, while the Identity Theft Resource Center says the technology is too new to recommend.
By Icarus3 min read
Meta’s Muse can track spending, audit subscriptions, negotiate bills, and hunt down money its users are owed, according to a Yahoo Finance review published October 22. The same review carries a blunt counterweight: Eva Velasquez, chief executive of the Identity Theft Resource Center, a US nonprofit that helps victims of identity crime, is quoted as saying the technology is too new to recommend, with data-sharing implications still unknown.
The review, by Yahoo Finance’s Kendall Little, examines the money features Meta has pitched since its Connect conference in September, where chief AI officer Alexandr Wang challenged users to let Muse find $1,000 in savings under the banner of the #MuseMoneyChallenge. The feature list is long. Muse can track spending and set budgets, audit subscriptions and flag unexpected charges, find duplicate charges, negotiate bills, including by calling providers, search unclaimed-property databases and file claims, and find deals and track prices.
Meta describes the agent as one that, once a person shares a goal, develops a personalized plan and coordinates time and resources, then advances the work on its own. It can open a browser, fill out forms, and negotiate on a user’s behalf. Purchases happen only after the user approves them, and where no card is stored, the agent uses single-use card numbers. Meta says it stores passwords and payment methods so they are hidden even from the agent, and keeps a trail of past and planned actions.
Meta’s own caveats are as direct as any critic’s. The company says Muse “isn’t immune to attack” and “will sometimes make mistakes.” Velasquez, in the review, put the nonprofit’s position plainly: “Right now, the technology is too new. The data sharing implications are still unknown … It’s just not something we’re going to recommend.” The review suggests a halfway measure for privacy-minded users: upload a statement with personal details removed and let the agent analyze it, rather than connecting the account directly.
The Bank Backdrop
The review landed the same week banks moved against outside agents. Axios reported that major US banks were finding unvetted third-party agents inside customer accounts, often logged in with credentials customers handed over, which most account agreements forbid. JPMorgan blocked outside AI agents from customer accounts, and Charles Schwab blocked Muse from client money outright.
That context sharpens the question the review raises. An agent that negotiates a cable bill on the phone is one thing; an agent with a bank password is another, and the liability when it errs sits, for now, mostly with the customer. Meta has said it is developing a personal-agent protocol standard, built with Sierra, meant to make clear to companies when a personal agent is acting for a customer.
Reading Versus Acting
The useful distinction in the review is between reading and acting. Letting an agent read a redacted statement and suggest which subscriptions to cancel carries little risk and can save real money. Letting it move money, sign up for services, or speak for you on a call is a delegation of authority, and both the company and its critics agree that nobody yet knows how often it will go wrong.
That distinction also frames what comes next for Muse’s money ambitions. More than 10 million people in the US and Canada have set up Muse since its September launch, according to Zuckerberg on Meta’s third-quarter earnings call, and shopping has emerged as one of its most popular uses. The money features are central to Meta’s pitch that Muse earns its keep. Whether banks, regulators, and consumer advocates come around will depend on a track record it has not yet had time to build.
