Meta’s Muse TV ad is the latest sign that AI agents are going mainstream

The next shiny new AI thing has arrived: The personal AI agent.

Once mostly the domain of Silicon Valley coders who used them to amp up their efficiency at work (and anxiety levels), the AI agent is now being welcomed into the home.

And with the release of Meta's new personal AI agent, Muse, the do-it-for-you tech is rocketing into the mainstream.

"It feels like magic," investor Sheel Mohnot said on X in reference to Instinct, another trendy new personal AI agent. "Contrary to what some people have said, I don't think the appeal is limited to Silicon Valley types."

These agents often live on common messaging apps. Users send messages, asking them to handle tasks like sending emails, purchasing things online, posting to social media, tracking prices, managing calendars, among many other things.

In Meta's first television spot, released this weekend, for the Muse AI agent, a woman prepares for a dinner party — chopping lettuce, mixing drinks — while her AI agent autonomously sorts emails, arranges her schedule, and purchases back-to-school items online.

"Muse is going NATIONWIDE to a television near you," Alexandr Wang, Meta's chief AI officer, said on X on Saturday.

The appeal of autonomous agents is plain. While the famous chatbots from Anthropic and OpenAI that are changing the world are designed to answer questions, personal AI agents can act on a user's behalf, run entirely in the background, handle whole processes online, and ping you with progress updates.