Meta’s fast-growing Muse assistant closely follows product conventions established by the open-source OpenClaw agent, although Meta says it built Muse from scratch. Both use names such as SOUL.md for core files, contain similar personality instructions and present an agent that can complete personal tasks through familiar messaging interfaces.
The similarities prompted users to claim that Muse was merely an OpenClaw wrapper. Meta product head Nat Friedman rejected that account but acknowledged that Muse was “heavily inspired as a product.” After trying OpenClaw in January, he reportedly bought hundreds of Mac Minis for his team and set out to create a version that Meta could secure, simplify and scale.
Muse reached the top of Apple’s App Store after launch and had about 600,000 daily active US users, according to an Apptopia estimate cited by The Verge. OpenClaw’s influence also appears in Instinct, another assistant used for bookings, paperwork and subscription cancellation, though its implementation looks less directly similar.
Matching file names and interface ideas do not by themselves establish copied code. They do show that OpenClaw’s approach—persistent files, tools and messaging rather than a blank chatbot—has become a template for consumer agents.