The same company that spent years censoring conservatives and deplatforming dissidents now wants to embed its AI into every small business in America — with access to your sales data, customer records, ad accounts, and communications.

Meta on Tuesday launched Muse for Small Business, an AI agent that plugs directly into the tools owners already use — QuickBooks, Shopify, Slack, Stripe, Dropbox, and more. The agent doesn't just answer questions. It takes actions on your behalf: drafting ad campaigns, managing inventory, communicating with customers, building websites. The question isn't whether AI can save you time. It's whether the company that decided you weren't allowed to speak now gets to decide what your business says.

Meta President and Vice Chairman Dina Powell McCormick told CNBC the tool is "allowing small business owners to take the most precious thing they have, their time, and to use it on building their business for the future." She noted that Meta already has ties to 200 million small business owners through Facebook and Instagram.

That existing relationship is precisely what makes this expansion significant — and what should make owners wary. Muse doesn't just live in Meta's walled garden. It connects to Facebook Pages, Instagram professional account analytics, and Meta ad accounts, Fox Business reported. But it also plugs into your QuickBooks, your Shopify storefront, your Stripe payments, your Slack channels, your Dropbox files, your Zoom calls, and your customer records. TechCrunch reports that Muse "knows what a business sells, how a brand sounds, and what customers ask about most."

That is an extraordinary level of access for one company to have over your operation. One AI agent, built by a company with a track record of deciding who gets to speak and who doesn't, now positioned to see your revenue, your inventory, your customer communications, and your ad strategy — all at once.

Follow the Money

Jefferies analysts project that if Muse reaches 1 billion users and converts just 3% to paid subscribers at $30 per month, the service could generate $10.8 billion in annualized subscription revenue, according to CNBC. JPMorgan raised its price target on Meta to $920 from $820, with analyst Doug Anmuth calling Muse a potential challenger to become "the most widely used consumer AI application since ChatGPT," IBT reported. Meta shares surged 26% in September.

Meta hired CJ Desai, formerly CEO of MongoDB, to lead its new Meta Enterprise Platform division, which will house all of the company's AI efforts including Muse, TechCrunch reported.

Who Decides What Your AI Says?

Meta says Muse works in its own isolated space and checks with the user before publishing, sending, spending, or sharing, per Fox Business. A free tier comes with usage limits; paid subscriptions unlock more. The company frames it as putting "superintelligence in the hands of as many people as possible."

But who decides what that superintelligence is allowed to say? Muse is designed to draft your ad campaigns and communicate with your customers. If Meta decides your business crosses a content line, does the AI stop working for you? IBT envisions a future where "tens of millions, and potentially hundreds of millions, of businesses operate their own agents within the Muse ecosystem," with transactions happening directly between AI agents rather than through websites or phone calls. That's not just a tool. That's infrastructure. And the company building it has a history of pulling the plug on people it doesn't like.

The small business owner who gets dependent on Muse for inventory management, ad campaigns, and customer communications is the same small business owner who can be shut out overnight if Meta changes its policies. You're not a partner. You're a data source on a platform that has shown it will cut you off when the institutional pressure gets loud enough.