NEWS · COMPANIES · #816
Meta says Muse was 'heavily inspired' by OpenClaw but built from scratch
Nat Friedman, head of product at Meta’s Superintelligence Labs, wrote that Muse was "definitely heavily inspired as a product by OpenClaw" while also saying Muse was "built from scratch." His remarks follow community comparisons noting near-identical workspace files (including a SOUL.md) between Muse and the open-source OpenClaw agent.
KEY POINTS
- Nat Friedman, head of product at Meta’s Superintelligence Labs, wrote that Muse was "definitely heavily inspired as a product by OpenClaw" while also saying Muse was "built from scratch." His remarks follow community comparisons noting near-identical workspace files (including a SOUL.md) between Muse and the open-source OpenClaw agent.
- The admission shows Meta explicitly drew on an open-source agent's design when building Muse, which matters for product provenance, reuse of community work, and comparisons between commercial and open-source AI agents.
- Meta admits Muse’s likeness to OpenClaw isn’t a coincidence
WHY IT MATTERS
The admission shows Meta explicitly drew on an open-source agent's design when building Muse, which matters for product provenance, reuse of community work, and comparisons between commercial and open-source AI agents.
SOURCES & TIMELINE
2Early adopters of Meta’s Muse have been speculating that the reason the AI works so well is because it’s OpenClaw under the hood, wrapped in a more consumer-friendly package. Meta now says those comparisons aren’t entirely off-base. According to an X post by Nat Friedman, head of product at Meta’s Superintelligence Labs (MSL), Muse was “definitely heavily inspired as a product by OpenClaw.” However, he clarified tha…
Meta’s new tool is very cute — and heavily inspired by its open-source predecessor. We seem to be entering into an AI agent renaissance. Meta’s new consumer-facing AI agent, Muse, topped the App Store charts soon after its release and has 600,000 daily active users in the US, by an Apptopia estimate. And AI agent platform Instinct, whose eponymous creator is fundraising at a $2.5 billion valuation, has been making t…