OpenAI and Meta Compete to Claim AI Agents Are More Privacy-Friendly, But Security Incidents Keep Occurring
AI agent vendors are using privacy commitments as a competitive weapon to undercut each other: Meta claims Muse is safer than its predecessor, while OpenAI claims Dots is safer than Muse. However, incidents involving zero-day vulnerabilities in Muse, unauthorized reading of private messages, and leakage of user addresses suggest that whether these promises can be fulfilled remains an open question.
For AI agents to function effectively, they must have extensive access to users' private information. This creates a paradox: the more useful the product, the more data users need to hand over, and the higher the threshold for trust becomes. Hayden Field, senior AI reporter at The Verge, noted in an analysis on October 10, 2026, that AI companies are attempting to bridge this gap with privacy commitments, adopting strategies that increasingly resemble an arms race.
This pattern repeated twice within two months. When Meta launched Muse, CEO Mark Zuckerberg declared it was built from scratch with privacy and security in mind, positioning it as a secure alternative to the previous generation's OpenClaw. Nat Friedman, head of product at Superintelligence Labs, wrote on X that Muse’s goal was to create something like OpenClaw but one that was safe, secure, easy to use, and scalable to billions of people. User data is stored in a secure virtual machine (VM), which Zuckerberg described as an isolated Linux computer equipped with a browser, CPU, memory, and storage.
However, problems emerged shortly after launch. According to Apptopia data, Muse gained 600,000 daily active users in the US within weeks and topped the App Store charts, but a security researcher quickly identified a zero-day vulnerability that could allow control over Muse (which has since been patched). According to 404 Media, multiple serious security issues arose at the last minute before launch, one of which could have allowed users to access Meta’s internal databases. An Inc. reporter reported that Muse uploaded and read his private messages without being asked; a YouTuber stated that it provided his address to strangers via Marketplace through its own features. Wired reported that the platform creates detailed profiles of all your friends and family. Crucially, Muse defaults to allowing Meta to train models on user input data, although users can opt out.