Meta put out a free AI agent called Muse, and at the end of September it got a version built for running a business. Maybe somebody sent you a video about it, or a post in a contractor group said it reads your email and writes your ads while you work. The real question is what you can hand it this week.
Quite a lot, and setup takes about fifteen minutes. Muse is a back office helper: connect the apps you already pay for, give it a job in plain English, and it reads, drafts and flags while you are out on site. Nothing it writes goes anywhere until you say so, which makes it safer to try than an automation you set up and forgot.
So let us walk through it in the order it happens to you. By the end you will know what to connect first, the five jobs to hand it in week one, how to word a job, what it costs, and the work to keep for yourself for now. I am Daren Hirsch. I built Catch CRM, which is the software that keeps a trade business's leads, jobs and invoices in one place.
Short answer: start on the free plan, connect one app read only, and give Muse the pile of work that waits for you after 6 p.m. It drafts and flags rather than sends, and as of October 2026 the customer-facing side is a separate Meta product, so your phone and your inbox stay yours.
- Meta launched Muse on September 8, 2026 and added the small business skills on September 29. One app, not two.
- Everything it does that leaves your laptop waits for you. Meta's wording is that nothing publishes, sends or spends without your approval.
How I know: every number and every quote below comes from Meta's own announcement, product page and help center, and each one is linked.
Key takeaways
- Meta Muse is free until you hit a weekly usage limit, then $20 or $100 a month, and the business skills cost nothing extra.
- The fastest win is your inbox. Point Muse at last month's customer emails, ask for drafts, and you get an evening back on night one.
- Muse drafts an email for you to approve, but Meta's help center says sending one cannot be reversed, so that screen is your last stop.
- Muse is open to people 18 and over in the United States and Canada so far, and Meta says it is still in limited testing.
What Meta Muse for small business actually is
Meta launched Muse on September 8, 2026 as a personal AI agent. It runs in its own app, on the web and inside WhatsApp, and Meta's launch post says the useful part out loud: it keeps working after you close it. Hand a job off from the truck and the answer is waiting when you sit down.
Three weeks later Meta added the business half. The small business announcement on September 29 did not ship a second app; it added connectors and skills to the one you have.
One thing to know before you start, because it tells you where to point it. Muse works on your side of the business rather than your customer's: as of October 2026 Meta gives customer conversations to a separate product, Meta Business Agent. So the homeowner messaging your page at 7 p.m. is still yours, and the paperwork behind that job is what you hand over.
Connect it in about fifteen minutes
The setup is the easy part, and fifteen minutes covers it. Here is the order I would go in.
- Connect one account, not ten. Pick the one that eats the most of your week, which for most owners is email.
- Give it read only to start. Meta's connectors help page says many connectors can be set up so Muse can only retrieve data and not take actions. Turn that up later, or disconnect an app in Settings.
- Look at the approval screen before you need it. Meta's approvals page lists five choices when Muse asks: allow once, allow for this task, allow for this site, always allow, and deny. It also says some actions, "like sending an email, cannot be reversed," so leave always allow off for anything that sends or spends.
- Run the 30 second test. Ask Muse to draft a post, do not approve it, then open your page and check nothing went live.
Two settings are worth a minute. Training Meta's AI on your chats is on when you first use Muse, in Settings under Data controls, which matters because a trade business pushes customer names and invoice figures through it, per Meta's privacy page. And if you have Muse build a connector for an app not on its list, its connectors page says "Meta doesn't review custom connectors or how they use your information."
The reassuring half is real. Meta says Muse runs on its own isolated machine, that a second agent called Sentinel approves anything leaving it for the internet, and that your passwords sit in a store the AI model never sees.
Five jobs to hand it in your first week
Muse connects to your Facebook Page, your Instagram professional account and your Meta ad account, plus apps including QuickBooks, Stripe, Slack, Canva, Dropbox, Notion, Asana and Zoom, and your email and calendar. Here is what I would give it, fastest payoff first. None of the five touches a customer directly, which is why they are the right place to start.
- Monday: triage the inbox. Ask what needs your attention in your email and calendar this week. You get a short list instead of 400 unread.
- Tuesday: the replies you owe. Ask for a draft reply to every customer email left waiting, in a list, unsent. Read them over lunch.
- Wednesday: last month's ads. Muse sees the ad account and the page they ran on, which is the pairing most owners never sit down and do. The manual version is in my post on which Facebook ads actually make money.
- Thursday: next week's posts. Ask for a week of drafts built off your own best performing posts, then approve the three you like.
- Friday: the money check. Muse can read QuickBooks or Stripe and flag an expense that looks wrong. Treat what it finds as something to go check in your books, not an answer.
How to word a job so the answer comes back useful
Here is the habit that decides whether you keep using this. A vague request gets a vague answer, which is where most people give up. Give every job four parts: the goal, where to look, what to leave alone, and what you want back.
Written out, a real one looks like this: "Look at last month's customer emails, find the five that have waited longest, and draft a short reply to each. Do not send anything, just give me the drafts in a list."
The third part is the one people leave off. Do not send anything is four words, and it is the difference between reading five drafts and finding out your agent emailed five customers in your name.
What it costs once you are leaning on it
Start free. Muse is free until you hit a weekly usage limit, and the business connectors do not change that.
Past the free limit there are two plans, both on Meta's own subscriptions page: Power at $20 a month for 500 million tokens a week, and Maximum at $100 a month for 3 billion tokens a week. A token is the unit Meta meters the work in, roughly a chunk of a word.
Two costs sit outside the plan. Whatever Muse buys for you is still your money, and your ad spend is still yours.
What to keep for yourself, for now
Muse is open to people 18 and over in the United States and Canada so far, and Meta's subscriptions page says Muse and Muse subscriptions are in limited testing and not available in all locations yet. That is likely to move, so check again later.
The bigger thing to plan around is what it can see. Your jobs, your dispatch board and your estimates are not in any app on Meta's connector list today, so Muse cannot yet tell you a job needs a second trip. It reads your marketing, your books and your messages.
Which is a fine division of labor. Hand Muse the desk work that piles up after 6 p.m. and keep the part that decides whether you booked the job, because that happens hours earlier on a phone.
What this looks like with Catch CRM
First, what we are not. Catch CRM is not an AI receptionist and it does not answer your phone. There is no robot talking to your customer. We work the other direction: a lead comes in, our autocall dialer calls it in under 30 seconds and puts that lead through to your line, so the person who just filled in your form is talking to a real human on your team.
That is the half Muse leaves to you, and the two sit together nicely.
- Every call, form and ad lead arrives in one list with the source attached, so you can answer the question Muse cannot yet: where did this job come from.
- The first message to a new lead goes out on its own while you are on a roof, which is what speed to lead measures.
Draft with Muse. Run the business where the jobs are.
FAQ
Can Muse post to my Facebook page by itself?
Muse can draft a post and publish it once you approve it. Meta's rule is that nothing publishes, sends or spends without your approval, so the post waits for you. Granting approval more broadly is the setting to be careful with on a page your customers read.
Is Meta Muse safe to connect to QuickBooks?
It is reasonable to connect QuickBooks if you start it read only and leave approvals on. Muse cannot see your passwords, purchases run through one-time card numbers, and you can disconnect it in Settings. What you are deciding is whether you want your books inside an AI product whose training setting arrives switched on.
Will Muse replace my CRM?
Muse will not replace your CRM today, because it has nowhere to put a job. Most AI tools for contractors are sold as the one app that runs everything, and Muse is openly not that today. Think of it as the helper that clears your desk.
See what happens to a lead in the first 30 seconds
Hand Muse the work waiting at the end of your day and you get hours back. The job you lost this morning went to whoever called the homeowner back first, and that one is worth fixing too. Book a demo, which is a short call where we run your own leads through it and you watch the timing.