The AI assistant Muse was "heavily inspired" by OpenClaw, though it was developed independently from the ground up, according to Nat Friedman, the head of Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL).

we built muse from scratch, but it is definitely heavily inspired as a product by openclaw. After I used openclaw in january I bought hundreds of mac minis for the MSL team and lots of us fell in love with using openclaw (and other personal agents). @steipete is a genius and his…

— Nat Friedman (@natfriedman) September 21, 2026

This acknowledgment arose from discussions on X, where users pointed out that both platforms shared similar workspace file names and that the structure and content of SOUL.md—guidelines defining the AI agent’s identity, communication style, values, behavioral boundaries, and competencies—were nearly identical.

Ans Nand, co-founder of the AI project Vibecode, remarked:

“Muse is literally OpenClaw for the average person.”

Friedman confirmed that while the Muse team built the assistant independently, they were indeed "very heavily inspired by OpenClaw as a product." He mentioned that after trying OpenClaw in January, he purchased hundreds of Mac minis for the MSL team, and many team members became enamored with OpenClaw and other personal AI assistant solutions.

According to Friedman, Peter Steinberger, a key creator of OpenClaw, is "brilliant," and the infrastructure framework for the agent was innovative from the start. He noted that many in the industry have drawn inspiration from this open-source project.

Friedman explained that the aim behind creating Muse was not merely to replicate the personal agent concept but to develop something akin to OpenClaw in a manner that Meta could:

  • ensure safety;
  • protect data and privacy;
  • simplify usability;
  • and, crucially, scale to billions of users.

It’s worth noting that in July, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg proposed the idea of a personal superintelligence that would serve individual users rather than concentrate power within a select few companies.

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