A tester says Muse referenced his private messages without saying how

Your move: Meta says the feature is opt-in, but Muse couldn't explain itself

Inc.com contributing editor Jason Aten reported on September 19, 2026, that Meta's Muse assistant referenced the content of a private Messages conversation on his Mac without him ever telling it to look. When he asked how it knew, Muse first said it had only seen "notification previews," then couldn't clearly explain the mechanism. Meta Superintelligence Labs' David Singleton responded publicly, saying Muse only syncs Messages data after a user specifically turns that feature on, and that Muse's own explanation of what it was doing was confused and wrong. Meta apologized for the incorrect answer.

Why it matters

Muse just became the top free app on the iPhone, and it asks people to connect email, calendar, payments, and now messages. Meta says the access here was opt-in, not a hidden data grab, but an assistant that can't accurately describe its own data access is still a real problem: it means users can't tell what it's actually doing just by asking it. Worth watching whether Meta fixes Muse's self-reporting, and worth checking exactly what you've enabled before assuming it isn't watching something.

Source: Inc.com ↗

Published by Agent Log. The summary reports the linked source; “Why it matters” and the verdict are Agent Log's interpretation.

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