Meta is refuting a journalist's claim that its Muse AI agent read the user's private messages without permission. Following a report from Inc. columnist Jason Aten, Meta VP of Communications Andy Stone pushed back on X, saying the Messages integration in the Muse app for Mac is entirely opt-in.

'You have to enable both Full Disk Access and the Messages connector for Muse to be able to read your Messages content. It can't read your Messages unless you do this,' Stone wrote. Meta Superintelligence Labs executive David Singleton added on Threads that the permissions involve three separate application-level steps plus macOS system protections that 'can't be circumvented even if the Muse application had a bug.'

The dispute lands amid growing scrutiny of the agent, just days after a widely reported incident in which Muse disclosed a user's home address in a Facebook Marketplace deal. With the Muse app still ranked No. 1 on the App Store, trust will decide whether Meta wins the consumer AI-agent market.