Glenn Kaonang · · 9 min readCan Meta charm you away from your phone?
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Hello reader,
Alexandr Wang correcting the internet’s estimates of his outfit’s price – down to identifying his underwear – cracked me up. But underneath the joke was a much more ambitious Meta.
He wore the contentious outfit while Mark Zuckerberg was introducing the world to Muse Charm, Meta’s Tamagotchi-like device for talking to Muse, its personal AI agent.
Whether it’s planning trips, booking reservations, or ordering groceries, Meta promises Charm will let users tell Muse what to do without having to open an app on their phones.
Image credit: Made by Ulla/Tech in Asia with the help of AI
If Charm catches on, I’m sure Meta will have plenty of competition in Asia, where cute characters linked with devices are hardly a new concept. The company’s AI glasses already face Chinese rivals such as Xiaomi and Rokid, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a similar field emerge around pocket-sized AI agents.
But when Meta starts chasing something this aggressively, it’s worth paying attention. Mark Zuckerberg is a competitive monster.
This brings us to one of our top AI reads this week. I reported on the competition between Meta and the startups building AI agents on WhatsApp. I spoke to founders about how they plan to stay relevant when the platform they depend on starts targeting the very same businesses they’ve been serving.
Also worth a read is this piece on why a Singaporean founder shuttered his startup despite landing seven-figure enterprise contracts. Amid the funding rounds, soaring valuations, and industry hype, consider this your reminder that not every AI startup is going to make it.
Later in this edition, we look at why Anthropic’s IPO prospectus isn’t quite as rosy as it seems and the monster deal between AMD and World Labs.
Glenn Kaonang, journalist
Editor’s note: This is the Wednesday edition of The Prompt. Our AI newsletter now comes out twice a week. For a deeper dive, check out Monday’s edition, where we unpack one big AI issue shaping the industry.
TOP AI READS FROM OUR DESK
1️⃣ They built AI agents on WhatsApp. Then Meta entered the chat
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