How Meta got ahead of OpenAI in the AI agent race

My Decoder guest today is Hayden Field, The Verge’s senior AI reporter, and we’re discussing the new wave of consumer-friendly AI agents.

If you’ve been paying attention to this space, you know AI enthusiasts have been using agents for a minute now — homebrew OpenClaw setups led to a surge in Mac Mini sales earlier this year. But the launch of Meta’s Muse, OpenAI’s Dots, and xAI’s Grok bot has brought easy to use agents to millions.

Muse and Dots have had the highest-profile product launches, and they’re fascinating to pit against each other. Both Meta and OpenAI have decided to pitch these agents to mainstream users and businesses in the form of cute, animated mascots.

These can do everything from the boring — restaurant reservations and inbox triage — to more sophisticated tasks. In OpenAI’s cases, the company is even offering “specialist” Dots for marketing, legal work, and accounting.

Muse, notably, is free, while Dots are not. So you’ll hear Hayden and me get into why Meta, which still doesn’t have a frontier model of its own, might have a meaningful edge here because it’s so much better at making and distributing consumer products.