Meta Connect 2026: a pocket-sized Muse Charm, more than 100 AI glasses styles, and a Muse that can drive any app on your Mac

Software first. The first item Meta lists is a great voice mode: the company's framing is that talking to an agent as capable as Muse is different from voice chat with an assistant, because you can have a long, in-depth conversation while Muse gets work done in the background as you are still talking. The second is voice design: you describe the voice you want, faster or slower, or even a specific accent, and that becomes your Muse's voice. Together these show the intent: turn talking to AI from a query-response exchange into an ongoing conversation.

The third item is the most visual. Meta Superintelligence Labs introduced Muse Realtime Avatar, described officially as state-of-the-art embodiment technology that turns Muse Realtime Voice into expressive, interactive avatars. The technical write-up lives on Meta's research blog in a post titled bringing your Muse to life. The framing in the official recap is bringing your Muse to life rather than leaving it as a voice that talks.

The fourth item is reach. In the coming months Muse comes to Meta's AI glasses, activated hands-free by saying your agent's name, and it can act on what you are looking at, so you do not have to describe what is in front of you: ask about a product on a shelf, a flier on a wall, or a long list of school supplies, and Muse can take action. Two more concrete moves: Muse gets its own email address, usable for getting things done or just as another way to reach it, and Muse for Mac gains computer use, meaning that with your permission Muse can now drive any app on your Mac and keeps working through your queued tasks after you walk away.

Connectors are why any of this does work. Meta says Muse launched with dozens of partners plus access to the entire Shopify catalogue. Additions announced at Connect include Walmart, Best Buy, American Eagle Outfitters, DICK'S Sporting Goods, Fanatics, Gap, Michael Kors, Sephora, Ulta and Wayfair, with Shop Pay and PayPal added for payments. Expedia is coming soon for travel, Instacart covers groceries, and for work there is Notion, Granola, GitHub and Box. Meta lists the ways you can reach Muse today as the Muse app, WhatsApp, the web, and the recently launched Mac desktop version, which can manage messages and find old files.

The first hardware item is Muse Charm. Meta's own wording calls it a delightful and fun device built for you to talk and interact with your Muse, bringing a state-of-the-art real-time voice model into a device that fits in your pocket, with more to share later this year. A TechCrunch report on September 23 offers a stickier analogy: a Tamagotchi-like wearable for its Muse AI agent. Note that Meta published no price or ship date at this event.

The second hardware item is glasses, and three lines expanded at once. New category first: Ray-Ban Meta Audio is the company's first audio glasses, packing open-ear audio and AI into the frame, described as the slimmest and lightest frames yet, in two new styles, Clubmaster and Burbank, with 12 hours of battery life and compatibility with a wide range of optical prescriptions. Then the flagship refresh: Ray-Ban Meta (Gen 3) is slimmer and more comfortable, adds an action button, and Meta says it has the longest battery life of any Ray-Ban Meta model, with two new frames, Aviator and Zena. Then the house brand: new Meta Glasses styles include an Ivory colorway of Meta Glasses by Kylie Jenner, a first collaboration with LISA, new Meta Capri and Meta Nova frame shapes, a low-cost Meta Adventurer, and a limited edition Meta Fury available only in Meta Lab locations at launch.

Scale and geography are expanding too. Meta says there will be more than 100 styles of AI glasses by the end of this year, and a Mix & Match program in the US lets buyers customize frame, lens and case color. On markets, Meta Glasses arrived in Singapore, South Korea and Mexico starting the day of the event, with Brazil and the United Arab Emirates coming soon. Meta also debuted Meta VR Glasses, described as wearable as glasses, delivering an IMAX-grade cinema experience and full spatial computing. On gaming there is one dated item: Beat Saber's biggest update yet, Flux, arrives in spring 2027 across Meta VR Glasses and Meta Quest.

One thing that should not be omitted: skepticism. On a September 27 TechCrunch show, reporter Sean said he had tried Muse, and while the agent did find him some unclaimed money, he described the feature as more a party-trick type thing than something that will drive ongoing usage. The sharper question in that discussion was trust: one participant compared it with the Siri on a new iPhone and said they would be more willing to give that kind of sensitive information to Apple, citing not only security but business model, since Apple's business is not selling ads. So the right way to read this news: the feature list is credible because it comes from official sources, but whether people actually use these things — and whether they will hand over their data — remains open.