Meta admits OpenClaw influenced its Muse AI assistant — TechCrunch
Meta said that its Muse AI assistant was built from scratch, but the product was heavily inspired by the open-source OpenClaw project. Nat Friedman, head of product at Meta Superintelligence Labs, said this on social network X, TechCrunch reports.
Similar files and settings
Friedman's statement came after a discussion among users who noticed Muse's resemblance to OpenClaw. Ansh Nanda, co-founder of an AI application, claimed that Muse was a version of OpenClaw adapted for a mass audience.
Users compared the system files of both assistants, including the SOUL.md file. Such a Markdown text file defines the traits of an AI agent: communication style, tone, values, behavioral boundaries, and specialization. According to participants in the discussion, the names of some files in the workspace matched, while the contents of SOUL.md were almost identical.
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Meta's position
Friedman did not deny the similarity of the file names and configuration content. He explained that the Meta team considered these decisions by OpenClaw creator Peter Steinberger to be good ones. According to him, after using OpenClaw in January, he bought hundreds of Mac mini computers for the Meta Superintelligence Labs team, and many employees began using OpenClaw and other personal agents.
The MSL head of product said Meta's goal was to create a product similar to OpenClaw, but safe, secure, easy to use, and capable of scaling to billions of users. A Meta spokesperson, commenting on the situation, referred to Friedman's statement and added that the company had no further comment.
The Muse app recently took first place in the US App Store. According to data cited by TechCrunch, Muse now outpaces the launch of ChatGPT after a direct comparison of the platforms and their market availability.
