The artificial intelligence agents that Meta and OpenAI each unveiled in September are drawing attention with childlike mascots, an attempt to soften negative perceptions as privacy concerns spread around software that handles online tasks on a user's behalf. The two companies have taken opposite pricing paths, however, with Meta offering free access and OpenAI charging $100 a month.
Meta's "Muse" features Jolly, a red-cheeked, furry yeti character, while OpenAI's "dots" is represented by a group of geometric shapes wearing berets and bow ties, Bloomberg reported on the 13th.
AI agents are automated personal assistants, and by design they are only as useful as the data shared with them. They access email inboxes, calendars and credit card accounts to carry out tasks for the user. The mascots are a device meant to ease concerns about trading data for convenience.
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OpenAI has emphasized dots' ability to handle work tasks, while Meta's Muse focuses on everyday use. Alexandr Wang, Meta's chief AI officer, said the product was designed to target personal use cases first, such as shopping for furniture, booking dinner reservations and filling out school paperwork.
Muse's core service is free, like Meta's social media products. The company has also released Muse Wonder, a closed, paid AI model that offers higher performance. Muse Wonder costs $4 per million input tokens and $20 per million output tokens, with a $100 subscription for higher usage limits. Meta plans to differentiate between free and paid service based on model performance for Wonder users.
Meta's ultimate goal is to draw billions of users to Muse. The app passed 7 million downloads in the U.S. within a month, according to market research firm Sensor Tower. Meta's shares have risen more than 20% since the agent's debut on assessments that the company has a hit on its hands. Shares of banks and travel agencies, by contrast, fell after Muse was unveiled, on concerns that their businesses could come under pressure if the agent compares lower interest rates for users and lets them book trips on their own.
OpenAI unveiled dots on the 28th of last month with a plan starting at $100 a month. Initial growth has been slower, but the product targets existing users who have relied on OpenAI tools for work such as writing code and producing research.
Andrew Boone, an analyst at Citizens Bank, said the difference in strategy also reflects what each company can currently afford. Meta has been building data centers since before OpenAI existed and runs a highly profitable advertising business, which allows it to spend heavily on expensive computing resources for a free product.
OpenAI, by contrast, already supports more than 1 billion ChatGPT users but began building out its infrastructure only in the past few years. It is burning through billions of dollars as it prepares for an initial public offering next year. Boone said it would be difficult for OpenAI to give away a computing-intensive agent like dots for free.