Dive Brief:
- Meta has launched Muse for Small Business, an AI agent that performs tasks across a range of business software, the social media giant said in a blog post on Tuesday.
- In addition to drawing from companies’ Instagram and Facebook business accounts, the tool can integrate with software like Shopify, Stripe, Intuit QuickBooks, Asana, Box, Canva, Zoom and other platforms to understand a company’s branding, storefront, accounting and customer records.
- So far, the company is offering Muse for free up to a certain number of tokens used and charging subscribers $20 to $100 per month for additional usage.
Dive Insight:
Meta has extended its Muse tool to small businesses after launching its AI assistant for U.S. and Canadian users last month. For personal users, Muse can handle tasks such as completing forms, sending emails, booking travel or converting recipes into grocery lists, according to the company’s Sept. 8 blog post.
Now, the company wants to extend the AI assistant to small businesses so it can support the services they already use. Businesses can require human approval before Muse makes purchases or publishes information, the company said.
When Muse transacts on small businesses’ behalf, the AI tool uses single-card numbers for new merchants, does not collect password or payment information, and doesn’t share virtual machine data with Meta’s advertising systems, a spokesperson for the company said in an email to Retail Dive.
But some companies have found issue with the rollout of Muse.
Last week, Amazon requested that Meta remove its e-commerce site from the Muse platform because it didn’t consent to being available on the tool. It follows Amazon taking Perplexity to court last year after its AI agent used Amazon to make purchases. The two companies are still battling in court, but in August, a U.S. appeals court overturned a temporary order prohibiting Perplexity from making purchases on Amazon.
