Meta says its new AI model can finally compete with OpenAI and Anthropic

Meta just dropped its most powerful AI model yet, and the company thinks it can finally go head-to-head with the biggest names in the AI race. Developers can access and pay for Muse Spark 1.3, the latest update to Meta’s flagship model. It won’t stay locked away for long either, as the update is set to roll out across Meta’s apps, including Instagram, Facebook, and Meta AI, in the coming weeks.

How good is Meta’s new AI model?

Meta’s Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang called this update the company’s “biggest jump so far on model performance,” pointing to major gains in coding and agentic tasks, basically the AI’s ability to complete tasks on your behalf. 

Wang told Bloomberg that Muse Spark 1.3 is competitive with Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5.1 and even beats OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 Sol at coding, though OpenAI’s upcoming Astra model looms on the horizon.

Of course, take these comparisons with a grain of salt. Benchmarks can be gamed, and a model that shines in one task might stumble in another.

What changed under the hood?

Wang broke down a few upgrades that make Muse Spark 1.3 stand out. It needs 25% fewer tokens to get the job done, meaning it runs more efficiently. It can juggle multiple workflows at once instead of forcing separate sessions, and it holds on to context better across long, complicated instructions. Meta also says the model now recognizes its own limitations and will pause to ask for clarification before taking any action that can’t be undone.