Meta has an AI solution to its misunderstood trust problem
Meta has an AI solution to its misunderstood trust problem
Hamza ShabanSat, September 26, 2026 at 10:00 AM UTC
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Meta's Muse has the "it" factor. After a flashy debut, it quickly won over early adopters and analysts for being the first capable AI agent for normies.
But a trickier question is whether Zuckerberg and company have the trust factor.
Of all the tech CEOs, perhaps none have as much trust and safety baggage as Zuckerberg. His rise to tech emperor was immortalized in the movie "The Social Network," which you could even say was about trust.
And even casual news consumers recognize him from the numerous times he was dragged to Washington, from the Cambridge Analytica scandal; antitrust issues; Facebook's role in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack; and most recently online child safety.
Despite it all, one indisputable fact remains: Zuckerberg's universe of apps is extremely popular. Zuckerberg says 43% of people worldwide use its products like Facebook, Instragram, Whatsapp, and Threads.
But will enough people feel assured enough in Meta to plug Muse into their wallets, calendars, inboxes, and shopping carts?
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg presents the Muse Charm during the Meta Connect event at the company's headquarters in Menlo Park, California, U.S., September 23, 2026. REUTERS/Carlos Barria TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
As we wrote about after Apple's keynote earlier this month, trust is a funny concept in a world where we all choose (with a lot of social pressure and incentives) to surveil ourselves and each other, constantly. In fact, a new generation of always-listening machines is bubbling up. But it's not a nitpicky thing to say that the company behind Facebook doesn't have the same relationship with people as the one that makes the iPhone.
But at the same time, power users of Facebook and Instagram, and even occasional users already feel comfortable enough with Meta to share aspects of their most intimate spaces and moments. Facebook might not have access to your calendar or email but you probably have synced your contacts and DM'd your friends. Even though people might declare their suspicion of Zuckerberg, they still use his products to gossip, gush, spill, and click on things they would like to stay very much private.
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That's why, as Justin Patterson, KeyBanc managing director, told Yahoo Finance, "Meta is having its moment." After the Muse announcement, Patterson was among the analysts to raise his price target on Meta. He sees $900. Shares are up almost 13% over the past week.
Maybe saying users won't trust Muse to be their AI agent is denying how much people already depend on the Meta umbrella for their digital lives. Or maybe, as Meta sees it, people will take Muse's privacy safeguards seriously. Zuckerberg has emphasized that his teams designed state-of-the-art privacy and security into Muse's systems from the beginning.
"People aren't going to adopt it, unless they trust it," Zuckerberg said in an interview with Joanna Stern on "The New Things." "We are entering a phase where trust and alignment is actually going to be the most important next set of capabilities."
Ironically, that's a reason to be bullish on Meta, or to think that many of its targeted users will instead wait for Google's autonomous agent, or a future, enhanced version of Apple's Siri.
For now Meta has the market largely all to itself. And despite the superficial blockages, Zuckerberg believes his company can power through. You might not place Meta in the highest regard right now, but being first and good enough might be enough for Muse to win.
Hamza Shaban is a reporter for Yahoo Finance covering markets and the economy. Follow Hamza on X @hshaban.
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