Early enthusiasts of Meta’s Muse have been speculating that the effectiveness of the AI is a result of its underlying technology being based on OpenClaw, albeit presented in a more consumer-friendly format. Meta has acknowledged that such comparisons hold some merit. In a post on X, Nat Friedman, the head of product at Meta’s Superintelligence Labs, remarked that Muse drew significant inspiration from OpenClaw.
Nonetheless, he emphasized that Muse was created entirely from the ground up.
Friedman, previously the CEO of GitHub and now part of Meta, expressed that the team was enamored with OpenClaw and aimed to create a product similar to it that could be adapted for billions of users.
Since OpenClaw is an open-source initiative, it’s not surprising that Meta would look to it for ideas, especially following its notable success, which led to OpenAI recruiting its creator earlier this year. This approach aligns with Meta’s strategy of incorporating successful features from other innovative products, reminiscent of their famous imitation of Snapchat’s stories format.
Friedman’s remarks came in response to a viral post among AI enthusiasts, where Ansh Nanda, co-founder of an AI app, asserted that “Muse is LITERALLY OpenClaw for normies.”
Nanda’s post featured a discussion with Muse, during which the AI indicated that the similarities between its system files and those of OpenClaw were not merely coincidental but a direct correlation.
The conversation sparked considerable engagement on X, with others sharing their evaluations and insights. One user noted that Muse contains a SOUL.md file, which is a plain text configuration file that defines an AI’s personality, communication style, values, behavior, and expertise.
Another participant pointed out that the files were not only similarly named between the two assistants, but their content was nearly identical as well.
After his post, Friedman addressed the query regarding the identical file names used in Muse’s workspace and their “almost identical content” in the SOUL.md file. Rather than disputing these points, Friedman acknowledged that they believed Peter Steinberger, the creator of OpenClaw, had done an excellent job with those elements.
“We developed Muse from scratch, but it is undoubtedly significantly influenced by OpenClaw. After experimenting with OpenClaw in January, I purchased hundreds of Mac minis for the MSL team, and many of us became fans of it,” Friedman said on X. (Editing was done for clarity.)
“@steipete [Peter Steinberger] is brilliant, and his design was revolutionary from the start. Many were likely inspired by it. Our aim with Muse was to create something akin to OpenClaw that emphasizes safety, security, ease of use, and the potential to scale for billions,” he expressed.
The Muse app has seen considerable success, recently ranking No. 1 on the U.S. App Store. Current data indicates that its launch is outpacing that of ChatGPT when comparing platform releases and market accessibility.
When approached for additional comments, a Meta spokesperson referred to Friedman’s statement, indicating the company had no further insights to share.
