Hello, Futurists.
I know I've been a little absent these past two weeks. I promise it won't become a habit.
But I have a good excuse.
A few days ago I was at Meta Connect 2026, one of Meta's biggest events of the year.
And it was pretty surreal.
A few years ago, I was at my computer posting about artificial intelligence and following everything these companies were doing from the outside.
This time, I ended up inside Meta, testing products before they reach the market and getting the chance to meet Mark Zuckerberg in person.
But beyond that, I left the event with something quite clear:
Meta isn't competing only in social media anymore. It wants to be one of the companies building the next major AI platform.
And I think a lot of people are still underestimating that.
The strategy seems to have two parts. A personal AI that knows you, remembers things about you, and works for you. And devices that let that AI stay with you all day.
Glasses. Audio. Computers. And probably devices that don't exist yet.
That's where Muse comes in.
Muse was probably what surprised me most
I've been using Muse for the past two weeks.
Of all the AI agents I've tried so far, it's probably my favorite.
Not necessarily because it has the smartest model. Because it feels much closer to what I imagined when we started talking about AI agents.
Muse connects with Instagram, your calendar, and tools from Meta and Google.
It can browse the internet, use apps, research, create documents, help organize trips, send emails with your approval, and remember things you want to do.
But for me, the most interesting part is something else:
Muse is proactive.
You don't always have to start the conversation. It can message you first. Remind you of something pending. Follow up on your goals. Keep working on things you've asked it to do.
You can also personalize it almost however you want: how it behaves, what it knows about you, and how you want it to help.
If you've spent years using ChatGPT, you can migrate much of that context to Muse too.
Muse also has its own virtual computer. You give it a goal. It starts working.
For me, that's the important shift.
Over the past few years, the competition was: Who has the best chatbot?
ChatGPT. Claude. Gemini. Meta AI.
Now the question is getting much more interesting:
Who will build the agent that manages part of your digital life?
Something important:
Muse still isn't officially available in Latin America.
I was able to install it because I was in the United States during Meta Connect. That's why I've had the chance to try it over the past few weeks, rather than just watching a demo.
In Latin America, we still have to wait. But it's coming.
I think there's an advantage for those who start understanding these tools now. When they arrive at scale, a lot of people will only just be discovering what an agent can do.
If you already know how to delegate work, provide context, and work with one, you'll have a head start.
Meta wants to bring AI beyond the screen
Here's where things get even more interesting.
Muse won't stay only inside a computer. Meta also wants to integrate it with its AI glasses.
That completely changes the experience. Your AI doesn't just know things about you anymore. It can start understanding what you're seeing.
Imagine walking into a store, seeing something, and asking: “Is this worth buying?”
Seeing a poster and saying: “Put this on my calendar.”
Or seeing a product and saying: “Find me a cheaper one.”
All without taking out your phone. Your visual context becomes part of the conversation.
To me, this is one of the clearest signs of where all this is heading.
AI is starting to move beyond the screen and into our everyday lives.
The new glasses were incredible too
Another thing that really surprised me was the new Meta VR Glasses.
They're much smaller and lighter than traditional headsets. When I saw them, I thought:
This looks much closer to what I expected Apple Vision Pro to be.
Not a giant computer stuck to your face. Something starting to look much more like normal glasses.
Obviously, there's still a way to go. But the direction is clear.
Meta is betting heavily on glasses becoming one of the main interfaces for AI. And this doesn't look like a small experiment.
Ray-Ban Meta. Oakley. Audio. Navigation. Accessibility. New generations of glasses.
Little by little, it's all connecting.
And now comes the AI “Tamagotchi”
Meta also showed Muse Charm. A small device dedicated to interacting with Muse.
Zuckerberg compared it to a kind of Tamagotchi.
It sounds strange. But to me, the interesting thing isn't necessarily that product. It's what it represents.
Meta is trying to figure out which AI device comes after the smartphone.
OpenAI is working on hardware. So is Meta. And many other companies are looking for exactly the same thing.
Nobody seems to have the answer yet. But everyone is searching.
Muse vs. ChatGPT
Here's where things get interesting. I do think Muse could become one of ChatGPT's strongest competitors.
Not necessarily because it answers every question better. Meta's advantage could be much simpler:
Distribution.
Meta has around 3.6 billion daily active people across its family of apps.
Instagram. WhatsApp. Facebook. Messenger.
Meta doesn't need to convince billions of people to download a new app. They're already there. It can put its AI directly into the products people use every day.
OpenAI has another enormous advantage: ChatGPT has already become a habit for hundreds of millions of people. And now it's pushing agents with Dots too.
To me, the battle is starting to look something like this:
Meta: AI lives inside the apps and devices you already use.
OpenAI: AI becomes the layer from which you control everything else.
It's still too early to know who wins. But this competition will be very interesting.
I wouldn't count Mark out of this race
There's something I think many people are underestimating:
I wouldn't count Mark Zuckerberg out of this race. Not even close.
Meta has an absurd distribution advantage. But it also has another important one:
Money.
Meta has one of the world's biggest advertising businesses, constantly generating cash. That lets it spend for years on data centers, chips, talent, and AI models.
That matters enormously in a race likely to cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
Zuckerberg also made a huge bet with Meta Superintelligence Labs and hiring Alexandr Wang.
When that happened, many saw it as a sign that Meta was desperate to catch up. Now things are starting to look different.
Muse is a very good product. The hardware strategy is starting to make sense. And Alexandr Wang has become one of the most visible faces of Meta's new chapter.
He's even out there leading the race to superintelligence in Crocs.
I don't know whether Crocs help with AGI. Apparently, they aren't slowing it down either.
Meta can play the long game
That's why I wouldn't bet against Meta.
It has distribution. Capital. Talent. Hardware. Instagram. WhatsApp. Facebook. Messenger. Glasses.
And now it also has an AI product that actually feels competitive.
Muse has a free version too and does an impressive number of things. Personally, so far, it's the agent I've most enjoyed using.
I'm not saying Meta will win. Not even close. This race is just getting started.
But I do think it's a mistake to reduce all this to OpenAI vs. Anthropic vs. Google.
Meta is very much in this race. And it has tools the others simply don't have.
What I took away from Meta Connect
Beyond the launches, being there was special for me.
A few years ago, I followed these companies from the outside and posted about what they were building. This time, I was inside Meta Connect, trying technology before most people get it and having the opportunity to talk personally with Mark Zuckerberg.
But the most important thing I took away wasn't a photo. It was a slightly better understanding of where all this seems to be heading.
I think we're entering a significant transition. From the smartphone as the center of our digital lives… to a personal AI that accompanies us across different devices.
Maybe glasses. Maybe something like Muse Charm. Maybe something nobody has invented yet.
But I find it harder and harder to imagine AI's future as simply opening an app, typing a question, and waiting for an answer.
The next stage is different.
Delegating.
While most people are only learning to use chatbots, Meta, OpenAI, and the rest are already building what comes next.
And this is only the beginning.
This piece came after my third consecutive Meta Connect.
The idea was to do the heavy lifting for you: follow the launches, try whatever I could, listen to the conversations inside the event, and separate what really mattered from the noise.
Meta presented a lot. But my goal was for you to understand, in a few minutes, what changed, what's worth following, and where the company seems to be heading.
Thank you for making it this far.
If this kind of coverage from events like Meta Connect is valuable to you, send me a message.
What caught your attention most out of everything Meta presented?