Meta launches Muse in Japan with local service connections still in development
Meta brought its personal AI agent Muse to Japan, its first market outside North America. The assistant can plan tasks, work through a browser and continue after its app closes. Meta says important actions require approval. Connections to Japanese services remain in development, and several previously announced features have no Japanese release date yet.
Artificial Intelligence··Evening
Japan becomes Muse’s first market outside North America
Meta launched Muse, its personal AI agent that carries out tasks for users, in Japan on October 23. It is the service’s first market outside North America, where it began in September. People can access Muse through mobile applications and its website. The Japanese launch brings the task-running assistant to a new market while work on connections to several local services continues.[1], [2]
Muse is designed to turn a request into a plan and follow its steps through a browser. Those steps can include filling in forms and interacting with services. Work can continue after the application closes, followed by a notification about the result. Meta says the assistant can also use remembered context from earlier conversations to inform a subsequent task within that workflow.[1]
Japanese service connections are still being developed
Connections to Mercari, the Japanese marketplace, the Money Forward ME personal-finance service and ticket service Ticket Pia remain under development. Meta presents them as further steps in adapting Muse to Japan. Their inclusion in the announcement therefore identifies planned local connections rather than confirming that each service is already available through the assistant. The regional rollout has its own timetable for those features.[1]
The existing connection list includes Gmail, Google Calendar and Instagram, as well as payment, shopping and travel services. Meta says important actions, such as sending an email or making a purchase, require the user’s approval. Users can examine the assistant’s action history and withdraw permissions. These are the controls Meta describes for tasks performed on a person’s behalf through connected services.[1]
Meta gives some announced features a separate Japanese timetable
Voice mode, a real-time avatar and a dedicated email address had been announced for Muse elsewhere. Meta has not announced when those capabilities are due in Japan. The company also says each user has a separate secure virtual machine, with internet access controlled by its Sentinel security system. These are Meta’s descriptions of the product’s design and protections, rather than independently measured security results.[1]
