Guides / Duet vs Muse vs dots · Updated 23 October 2026

Claude Duet vs Meta Muse vs OpenAI dots vs Grok Bot

In ten weeks four large AI companies shipped an always-on agent with its own cloud computer: xAI’s Grok Bot (11 August), Meta’s Muse (8 September), OpenAI’s dots (29 September) and Anthropic’s Claude Duet (21 October). They look alike from a distance. Up close they differ in price, in who they are built for and in how much of your own tooling you can plug in.

Short answer

Cheapest to try: Meta Muse, which has a free tier.
For running a small business on existing apps: Claude Duet (6,000+ connectors, morning brief, approvals) or Muse for Small Business if your sales run through Facebook, Instagram and Shopify.
If you already pay for ChatGPT Pro: dots, with the most detailed per-action rules.
For developers who want their own MCP servers and command-line tools: Grok Bot or Claude Duet.
Outside the US: dots (except the UK, Switzerland and the EEA at launch). Duet is US-only for now.

Side by side

	Claude Duet	Meta Muse	OpenAI dots	Grok Bot
Company	Anthropic	Meta	OpenAI	xAI
Launched	21 Oct 2026, research preview	8 Sep 2026	29 Sep 2026	11 Aug 2026, early beta
Model	Claude Opus 5.5	Meta’s own	GPT-6 Astra	Grok
Cheapest plan with it	Claude Pro, $20/month	Free; $20 and $100 plans	ChatGPT Pro 100, $100/month	Cursor Ultra ($200) or SuperGrok Heavy
Own cloud computer	Yes, VM with browser	Yes, isolated environment	Yes, Linux with Chrome	Yes, shared by all your Bots
Apps it connects to	6,000+ connectors and plugins	Email, calendar, Instagram; 15 business connectors	4,000+ apps (ChatGPT plugins)	Connectors, plugins, MCP servers
Your own MCP server	Yes, as a custom connector	Custom connectors (Small Business)	Not stated for dots	Yes
Approvals	Before send, pay, sign, delete	Nothing publishes, sends or spends without approval	Custom Rules per action, fixed floor	You choose what needs approval
Apps	iOS, Android, web	iOS; macOS app reported	ChatGPT desktop, web, mobile; Slack, Teams	macOS, Windows, iPhone
Where	US, waitlist	US (Canada reported)	Not UK, Switzerland, EEA at launch	Not stated

Comparison grid of Claude Duet, Meta Muse, OpenAI dots, Grok Bot and Hark Pro: own cloud computer, free plan, own MCP server, approval before sending or paying, Android app — The same comparison as a picture, with Hark Pro added.

Price

Bar chart of the cheapest monthly plan that includes each agent: Hark Pro and Meta Muse free, Claude Duet $20, OpenAI dots $100, Grok Bot $200 — Cheapest plan that includes the agent. Heavier use costs more on every one of them.

All four bill through an existing subscription, not per task, and all four have usage limits that background work eats into. Duet shares Claude Pro or Max limits. Dots draw on a separate “deeper work” allowance, extended for the first month, while tasks they start in Codex count against normal limits. Grok Bot users report hitting weekly limits on heavy multi-Bot runs.

Connectors and your own tools

Bar chart of announced connector counts: Claude Duet 6,000+, OpenAI dots 4,000+, Grok Bot 1,000+ through Composio, Meta Muse 15 business connectors plus custom ones — Each company counts differently, so read these as orders of magnitude.

The headline counts matter less than one question: can you add a tool nobody else has? For anyone with a specialist workflow (for us that is ordering electronic parts) this decides whether the agent can do the job at all.

Claude Duet: yes. Any remote MCP server added to your Claude account as a custom connector carries over. See Duet connectors and MCP.
Grok Bot: yes. xAI supports connectors, plugins and MCP servers, and the Bot’s computer has a command line.
Meta Muse: Muse for Small Business supports custom connectors for services Meta does not offer.
OpenAI dots: dots use ChatGPT’s plugin permissions; we found no statement that you can add your own MCP server to a dot.

Approvals and safety

All four ask before spending money. They differ in how much you can tune:

Duet has a fixed list: send, pay, sign and delete wait for you; trading and moving money between accounts are blocked.
Dots let you set each action to act, act if pre-approved, ask first or hand off, above a floor that always returns password changes and money transfers to you. A separate auto-review checks planned emails and file changes.
Grok Bot lets you require approval for sending, publishing, deleting, purchasing and production changes. All your Bots share one computer, so xAI warns not to treat them as separate security boundaries.
Muse runs in an isolated environment that Meta says never sees your passwords or payment details.

Which one for a hardware business

If you design and sell devices, the agent has to deal with suppliers, BOMs and orders, not only email. Today Duet and Grok Bot are the two that can call a parts MCP server such as Next Everything, and the coding agents (Claude Code, Cursor, Codex) can do it from the project folder. More in can an AI agent order electronic parts.

Hark Pro, Instinct and Fo are in our wider roundup of personal AI agents.

Sources

About this guide

We build Next Everything, an MCP server that lets AI assistants and agents check a BOM against the JLCPCB/LCSC catalog and live Mouser and DigiKey prices, and order the parts you approve. Features, prices and availability here are as announced by each company and reported in the press on the date above. These products are in beta or preview and change often.

Next Everything is not affiliated with Anthropic, Meta, OpenAI, xAI, Hark or the other companies named here. Product names belong to their owners.