I would think twice before handing my company’s Stripe account to software that already shared a stranger’s home address without asking. However, that is essentially the trust Meta is now asking small business owners for.
On Tuesday, Meta expanded Muse to small businesses, letting owners integrate the AI agent with tools like Shopify and QuickBooks to help them with daily operations.
So what does Muse for small business actually do?
To keep things simple, Muse plugs into the software owners already use. Whether it’s Shopify, Slack, QuickBooks, Stripe, Notion, or Canva, you, as a business owner, can easily integrate Muse into your daily dashboard.
In fact, it can also manage Instagram analytics, Facebook Pages, and Meta’s ad accounts. With that access, the AI agent learns what a business is about, what it sells, what the brand sounds like, how it markets its products, and what customers are asking or saying.
Basically, it’s like hiring a business manager who can help you track and manage the back end without having to teach someone how to do it. Meta’s pitch: “They told us they’re short on hours, not ideas.” While the free version comes with usage limits, a subscription buys more room.
Should small businesses actually trust it with that access?
My skepticism isn’t around what Muse can do. It is surely one of the most useful tools that businesses can integrate into their operations. However, it’s the reputation Muse has built recently.
Plenty of cases have happened where the AI agent did something it wasn’t supposed to. For instance, it once negotiated a Marketplace deal for tech creator Matt Robb and gave a buyer his home address without the creator’s permission.
What followed isn’t important — the buyer showed up at this building at night — but its tendency to get things done with minimal supervision could cause problems. Testers have also caught it reading private messages it wasn’t authorized to see.
Meta says it safeguards user privacy by isolating each AI agent in a dedicated virtual machine, keeping personal data strictly separated from other users and Meta’s advertising network.
Further, to keep the business owner in control, the system requires mandatory human approval before publishing anything (content, messages, or spending money). If that’s enough for you, you might try Muse firsthand to see if it fits your day-to-day operations.
