MENLO PARK, Calif. — Meta’s new artificial intelligence agent can review spending, hunt for unused subscriptions and negotiate bills on a consumer’s behalf, putting personal finances at the center of its pitch for Muse and raising a host of questions for credit unions in how to grow membership in a world in which consumers are increasingly turning to agentic AI for their decisionmaking, not increasingly old-fashioned word of mouth or in response to marketing efforts.
Unlike a chatbot that only answers questions, Muse can carry out tasks across connected services. A user can give it a goal, such as reducing monthly expenses, and have it develop a plan, open websites, fill out forms and seek approval when an action requires it, according to Meta. The company launched Muse earlier this month and highlighted its capabilities at its Meta Connect conference last week.
Meta Chief AI Officer Alexandr Wang demonstrated how Muse could negotiate a lower cable bill and make purchases across services. He also challenged users to try to save $1,000 with the agent under the hashtag #MuseMoneyChallenge. That figure is a promotional goal, not a guaranteed saving.
What Muse Can Do With Money
Meta says consumers can connect bank accounts through Plaid so Muse can identify spending patterns, build visual breakdowns and suggest steps toward financial goals. Yahoo Finance reported that the agent can also monitor subscriptions, flag recurring charges and help users decide which services to cancel.
Other possible uses include comparing prices before a purchase, looking for lower-cost service providers and negotiating existing bills. Yahoo Finance reported that Muse can search state databases for unclaimed property and help start a claim for money left in old accounts or owed by a former employer. Whether it can complete a given task will depend on the information and access available to it.
Muse can also shop on a user’s behalf. Meta says it seeks approval before making a purchase. For eligible checkouts using Stripe’s Link, a one-time-use card keeps the consumer’s actual card number from the merchant, the company said. Meta has said it expects to collect a small fee on transactions made through the agent, giving the company a financial interest in purchases Muse facilitates.
The agent is available in the United States through its own app and on the web, and users can communicate with it through WhatsApp. Meta said at Connect that it plans to bring Muse to AI glasses and a pocket-size voice device called Muse Charm. Those additions are planned; they are not required to use its current financial tools.
One Person’s Experience
A New York Times reporter who turned over his life for two weeks to Muse raved about the experience.
“Two weeks in I found Muse to be the most useful AI app I had ever used,” the reporter wrote. “One clarifying moment came after I connected my credit cards to Muse and asked it to track my spending in Googe Sheets. I watched it as it spun up tabs with hundreds of rows of data each in minutes, then flagged two duplicate subscriptions, which it cancelled for me.”
Credit Unions Cautioned to Pay Attention
As the CU Daily reported here, Dr. Lamont Black, associate professor, Department of Finance and Real Estate at DePaul University, and who also leads the consulting firm Wide Open Ventures and who does extensive work with credit unions, told Catalyst Corporate’s Strategic Summit last week that 2026 marks the end of the Information Revolution and the beginning a new chapter in human history, and he cautioned that if credit unions want to emerge from that history and play a role in the future it is imperative they understand exactly what’s taking place.
lack urged credit union leaders to specifically pay attention to agentic AI and not just AI for backoffice efficiencies and use-cases.
The “age of consumer agents” has arrived, he said. “This is something many credit unions are not thinking about enough. Think about what this means to changing the nature of shopping; Typically, buying online begins with the shopping experience. The trend you should be focused on is what happens when the agents are paying on behalf of the consumer. This is not people buying stuff.”
Black compared where money is headed to self-driving cars. Driving is a means to an end, he said, and so is money. “Welcome to self-driving money,” Black stated. “It is not me managing my money; it is an agent managing it on my behalf.”
‘Ruthless Agents’
How will agents pay? Optimally, according to Black, who noted:
- Agentic AI has no habits and no loyalty
- Cheapest and fastest wins. “Agents will be ruthless in that respect.”
- Agents will drive stablecoin adoption.
The risk to the credit union is that the entire member’s payment life shifts away and credit unions revert back to again being more of a savings and loan model, he said.
Privacy and Accuracy Questions
The potential savings come with a consequential choice, according to anaysts: How much access should a consumer give an AI agent to bank and credit union accounts, bills, email and payment methods?
Meta says users choose which services Muse can access and can change or revoke that access. The company says passwords and payment methods are stored separately from the agent, sensitive actions require approval, and users can review a record of its actions. Meta also says Muse can make mistakes and is not immune to attacks. A more strongly encrypted version, in which only the user holds the key, is planned for later this year.
Eva Velasquez, CEO of the Identity Theft Resource Center, told Yahoo Finance that the technology is too new for her organization to recommend linking sensitive financial information to such services, citing uncertainty about data sharing. Consumers who want budgeting help without connecting an account could instead provide statements with identifying details removed, though they would have to supply updated information themselves.
