It’s two days before my wife’s birthday, and I’ve only got her one gift. While it’s not a major milestone birthday, she always seems to be sad that her day falls on Halloween weekend. 

“Everyone’s hungover from Halloween,” she says. 

This year, we’re braving the city’s big parade chaos to visit a restaurant she’s had on her bucket list forever. With one gift and a meal planned, I wanted to see if Meta’s Muse personal AI agent could help plan the rest of our weekend festivities. 

I’d had luck with using the agent for a Facebook Marketplace find, and given its connectors like Ticketmaster and OpenTable, I had hoped it would surface some fun weekend events. Or could it order a cake delivery on my behalf or create cute wrapping paper? And could I do it all with the one agent? 

Let’s see if Muse can help me become a planning savant. 

Jumping back into Muse

As always, I open a new chat for a new goal/task to avoid carrying over the context from the previous chat. 

I told Muse my plans (dinner booked and one gift secured) and asked what free events are in Manhattan on Saturday and in our local neighborhood on Sunday. 

It surfaced some interesting events we could attend before or after dinner. 

Meta/Screenshot by CNET

The obvious one is the Halloween parade, so I asked for a map showing where the crowd will walk (with time stamps) and what we can expect to see around 7:30 p.m., as we walk from East Village to West Village. It actually generated some pretty neat options. 

Meta/Screenshot by CNET

I asked Muse for the best directions so we could see all the costumes while still getting home to New Jersey without incident. It gave us a couple of stop options based on the time it expects we’ll be there.

With the night sorted, I moved on to finalizing her gift. I popped a few photos from our year into Muse and asked the AI agent to create printable gift wrap for the pair of shoes I got her. It could’ve been my internet, but Muse seemed to struggle with this task. It kept loading for many minutes, so I moved on to the next task. 

Meta/Screenshot by CNET

With Muse moving at a glacial pace, I decided to delegate the gift-wrapping task to ChatGPT while I asked Muse about working on a delivery. My wife loves Good & Plenty licorice candy, but we don’t live near a store that sells it, so I asked Muse to order two boxes for me. 

While Muse looked for sweet treats, ChatGPT created this wrapping. The chatbot also told me the ideal print size to cover a shoebox without it looking pixelated, which was a helpful touch.

ChatGPT/Screenshot by CNET

As for the candy, Muse looked at various sites, but I told it to shop at Instacart. It got blocked without a login, so I had to take control of the browser to give it access. 

Muse told me the price, which I was happy with, then I asked it to place the order. But it sneakily signed me up for Instacart Plus (I guess to get the free delivery) — even though I told it not to. 

Meta/Screenshot by CNET

But it had already ordered it. Instead of dropping Instacart Plus for a total of $30.74, it charged $22.75 with the sign-on discount.

Meta/Screenshot by CNET

Meta/Screenshot by CNET

I asked it to triple-check that I wasn’t signed up for the subscription, and I got a confirmation email that it canceled successfully. Phew! 

I quickly checked back on Muse’s “design” chops for the wrapping paper, but I wasn’t impressed. The final product looked boring and not to scale, with half of the photos cut off.  

Meta/Screenshot by CNET

Do I dare ask Muse to design and order a cake? I decided after this debacle that my sentimental wife would appreciate a handmade cake or a froyo treat after dinner instead. 

At least I have her beloved candy on the way. 

The verdict on Muse this time

It was fun to have Muse run alongside whatever I was doing. It didn’t offer anything I couldn’t find or do myself, but I did like the Halloween parade map with time stamps and how it saved me a delivery fee on the candy order. 

There are certainly different agents for different use cases, though. I wouldn’t use Muse for anything creative, but it’s handy for Marketplace, events and placing online orders.

My only issue was that Muse said the Instacart total would be $22.75, but I was actually charged $23.35. I’m not sure whether that was an error on Instacart’s or Muse’s part, but it serves as a good reminder to always stay in the loop when an AI agent is handling your money.  

AI agents certainly aren’t 100% autonomous yet, especially when there’s a payment involved, but it’s fun to have them run in the background to tackle some of these personal to-dos.  

(Disclosure: Ziff Davis, CNET’s parent company, in 2025 filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.)

Amanda Smith is a freelance journalist and writer. She reports on culture, society, human interest and technology. Her stories hold a mirror to society, reflecting both its malaise and its beauty. Amanda’s work has been published in National Geographic, The Guardian, Business Insider, Vice, News Corp, Singapore Airlines, Travel + Leisure, and Food & Wine. Amanda is an Australian living in the cultural center of gravity that is New York City.

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