Last week during Meta’s earnings presentation, Mark Zuckerberg said the company was working on new AI agents for individuals and businesses on the company’s platform. Now we know a little more about what these projects entail, thanks to a new report from The information.
The publication reports that Meta is working on an “OpenClaw-inspired” agent currently dubbed “Hatch.” It appears the company intends for Hatch to work with its own apps, including agent shopping on Instagram, as well as external services. The company tested Hatch on simulated versions of third-party services like DoorDash, Reddit and Outlook, according to The information.
Furthermore, Meta apparently also intends for Hatch to help the company compete with TikTok Shop. Instagram users could use the agent to more easily purchase items they see in Instagram Reels. Meta may have laid the groundwork for this with its recent move to allow creators to tag up to 30 products in a video.
The report doesn’t explain exactly how the agent will work with services that Meta doesn’t own, but Zuckerberg is clearly very interested in AI agents as a way to bolster his “superintelligence” ambitions. The CEO took a dig at OpenClaw in his remarks last week, saying the agent platform was “exciting” but also too complicated for most people to set up. He said he wants Meta’s agents to be more approachable and “provide agents who can understand your goals and then work day and night to help you achieve them.”
Separately, Meta also reportedly attempted to hire the creator of OpenClaw, the open-source AI agent platform that went extremely viral in AI circles earlier this year. He chose to join OpenAI instead. Zuckerberg did, however, hire the founders of Moltbook, a briefly viral (and probably overrated) forum for AI agents.
It will likely be some time before we see the agent abilities predicted by Meta. The company plans to launch the new tools toward the end of the year, according to the report. Meta would also test the agents with Anthropic models, rather than its own, although they are expected to eventually run on the company’s new Muse Spark model.
Meta’s ambitions in this area could also encompass its line of smart glasses. Although the report does not mention Agents in the context of Meta-branded glasses, one executive recently hinted at the possibility. Speaking on a follow-up call with analysts last week, CFO Susan Li said Ray-Ban Meta glasses “provide what we believe is the best form factor for agent interactions,” although she acknowledged it was “very early” for such capabilities.