Meta made a Tamagotchi-like wearable for its Muse AI agent

The AI amulet has become a bit of a cliché in the tech industry — devices like Friend have turned the idea of physical AI into little more than an exercise in eye-rolling for many consumers. But that hasn’t stopped Meta from jumping into the arena with its own AI wearable, called Muse Charm, which is designed to give consumers another way to stay connected to its recently launched, and already popular, personal AI agent, Muse. The device, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed in a “one more thing” moment during the company’s annual Connect event, isn’t ready to ship just yet. Zuckerberg said his team had to “finalize laying out the components” and promised the devices would be “ready to ship in time for the holidays in December.” The Muse agent, which is now embodied by a cute digital avatar known within the company as Jolly, lives inside the palm-sized totem that users can carry in their pockets or attach to a keychain. The device comes with a tiny screen that displays the avatar representing the agent. Users can talk to the device, which can then presumably carry out tasks on their behalf. “We packed the whole Muse experience, including the whole real-time voice and avatar stack, into something that fits on a keychain and is always available to talk to,” Zuckerberg said during Wednesday’s keynote. “You just go ahead and tap here in the fingerprint sensor in the corner, and you can start talking without having to unlock a phone or open an app.” Zuckerberg added: “So if you’re not wearing glasses, this is going to be by far the fastest way to talk to your Muse and to show what’s going on around you.” Appropriate for what it offers, the gadget has a quasi-Tamagotchi feel to it — a lightweight, personality-filled device designed to keep users always connected to Meta’s software. It also feels like a relatviely low-stakes way for the social media giant to experiment with AI wearables while also offering yet another way to distribute its AI agent to the masses. Topics AI , AI , Mark Zuckerberg , Meta , muse When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission . This doesn’t affect our editorial independence. Lucas Ropek Senior Writer, TechCrunch Lucas is a senior writer at TechCrunch, where he covers artificial intelligence, consumer tech, and startups. He previously covered AI and cybersecurity at Gizmodo. You can contact Lucas by emailing [email protected]. View Bio October 13 – 15 San Francisco Your next big connection is at Disrupt. Connect with 10,000+ founders, VCs, operators, and tech leaders. Explore tomorrow’s breakthroughs, hear what’s shaping tech today, and save up to $200 by Sept. 25 at 11:59 p.m. PT. BOOK NOW Most Popular Anthropic releases Opus 5.5 with lower prices and Fable-level performance Russell Brandom Meta’s Muse is outpacing ChatGPT’s early mobile launch Sarah Perez Tilly Norwood’s press tour is going about as well as you’d expect for an AI Amanda Silberling Anthropic is operating a lab that conducts biology experiments Julie Bort A new kind of AI model from a ChatGPT inventor is thrilling developers Tim Fernholz OpenAI caught its models leaving notes to successors to hide bad behavior Rebecca Bellan Microsoft exec called AI scraping ‘the largest theft of labor in human history,’ new unredacted filings reveal Rebecca Bellan