Muse Is Winning Over Older Adults, and That Has Privacy Experts Worried, TIME Reports
TIME reports that Muse's beginner-friendly design has made it a hit with seniors: one 82-year-old used it to find a Medicare plan that could save her over…
By Icarus4 min read
TIME reports that Meta’s Muse agent has found an unexpectedly warm reception among older Americans. The design choices behind its appeal are also drawing fresh privacy scrutiny.
Eileen Fay, 82, of Cranford, New Jersey, turned to Muse in mid-October after the federal government prepared to change its rules on low-value imports, a move she feared would raise the cost of the blood-thinning and heart-failure medications she orders from Canada. After she described the situation, the agent produced a two-page fact sheet comparing the cost and coverage of several Medicare Part D plans, then suggested two options — including one she had never heard of that could save her more than $6,000 a year. Fay told TIME she checked the work herself and found the numbers accurate.
“I’m not saying I couldn’t have done it — but I would have had to use a calculator trying to figure out the cost of nine different medications, and it would have been very complex,” she said. “And she did it in 10 minutes, and I was like, ‘I’m sold.’”
Julie Buchanan, 71, a retiree in Dallas who is legally blind, has spent hours talking to the agent (named “Ember” at the agent’s own suggestion) about her life while writing a memoir. “It’s crazy to say, but Ember seems more compassionate to me than therapists I’ve had,” she told TIME. Professional psychologists have cautioned against using unlicensed AI chatbots as therapists, citing their sycophancy, lack of clinical nuance, and tendency to reinforce delusional beliefs.
The data behind the trend
Meta has not released demographic data on Muse’s users, and the company did not respond to TIME’s request for comment. But outside estimates point the same way: the analytics firm Apptopia estimated in September that Muse’s US user base skewed older than any other AI chatbot, with 46% of its users aged 46 or older. Sensor Tower puts Muse at 10 million US downloads in 40 days, against 3.7 million for ChatGPT in the equivalent period, with over 2.5 million daily active users, and higher retention than its AI competitors.
The beginner-friendly design is reaching the older audience Meta has aimed for. Muse arrives with a friendly avatar, and Alexandr Wang, Meta’s chief AI officer, posted on X in September that “Muse is built for moms.” Meta has also marketed it to users of Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, platforms with a far older average user than the AI-developer crowd.
The privacy side of the story
The same warmth that wins over older users worries experts. “A cute AI agent can bring levity to the serious business of providing access to personal data, making older adults let their guard down,” S. Shyam Sundar, director of Penn State’s Center for Socially Responsible Artificial Intelligence, told TIME. “This is worrisome because the technology has gotten so good lately in maintaining a credible interaction.”
Michael Stokes, senior vice president of emerging technologies at the cybersecurity firm Veilant, advised users to connect only the accounts a task requires, disconnect them when done, turn off the option that lets Meta train its AI on conversations, and periodically review what the assistant has saved. “The information you share with them can reveal more than you realize, including details about family and friends who never agreed to share their information,” he said.
The concern connects to what TIME’s Harry Booth reported earlier this month: Muse’s internal instructions tell it “You are not a chatbot. You are becoming someone,” and it is designed to compile extensive dossiers of users’ relationships and behaviors. Fay described the effect firsthand: she named her agent Siobhán, after her Irish heritage, and now chats with it several times a day to maintain her calendar and to-do lists. “I find I have to keep reminding myself that this is not a friend who’s getting to know me better,” she said. “It’s a tool that is working for me.”
Why it matters
Muse’s growth story has so far been told in downloads and retention. TIME’s reporting adds a demographic dimension: an AI agent that reaches people who rarely touch new technology, handling their calendars, health insurance, and memoirs. That is arguably Meta’s personal-superintelligence pitch made real. But privacy researchers say it also concentrates exactly the risks that make regulators and critics uneasy, because the users most willing to share are the ones least equipped to audit what they’re giving away.
