Meta’s September 8, 2026 launch of Muse—a consumer personal AI agent running in dedicated secure VMs with browser access, persistent memory, proactive task execution, and app integrations—has defined the category and accelerated rival timelines. OpenAI followed quickly with its “dots” agents on GPT-6 Astra in late September, while startups such as Instinct and open-source efforts like nanoMuse have shipped comparable persistent, action-taking agents. xAI’s Grok Bot and Apple’s enhanced Siri also entered the race with cloud-computer or device-native capabilities. Industry moves including the October Personal Agent Protocol standard (backed by Meta, Sierra, Shopify, and Stripe) and expanding hardware support signal broad momentum toward production releases before 2027, with trader focus now on which labs will match Muse’s scope and reliability first.