By Adam Clark
A new era of artificial-intelligence models mean the inevitable race to compare and contrast just how good they are. Meta Platforms' new Muse Spark looks capable, rather than paranoia-inducingly powerful, but that might not be a bad thing for the social-media company.
Meta launched Muse Spark on Wednesday. Relief that its expensively revamped AI team was able to launch a competitive model gave the stock a boost.
Exactly how competitive Muse Spark will turn out to be is a matter of some debate. The model appears to rank just below the latest publicly available versions of AI models from Alphabet's Google, OpenAI and Anthropic, according to research institute Epoch AI.
That's pretty good but might soon be outdated. Anthropic has offered a preview of its new AI model, called Mythos, to dozens of companies. The AI company claims it is too dangerous to release to the general public currently due to the potential cybersecurity threat it poses. Meanwhile, OpenAI is close to finishing work on a new AI model, code-named Spud, according to The Wall Street Journal.
"We observed some critiques that [Meta's] Muse Spark was behind existing models (e.g., Anthropic Opus 4.6, Google Gemini 3.1 Pro) in agentic capabilities like coding, implying there is an even wider gap with the upcoming Anthropic Mythos model. We do not dispute this point," KeyBanc analyst Justin Patterson wrote in a research note.
However, Patterson argues that Meta doesn't necessarily need to have a model which can match its competitors across all uses.
"Rather, we believe models are increasingly specializing in different areas, creating an environment where multiple models can work. Whereas Anthropic has focused more on the enterprise, Meta is leaning into practical AI applications in areas like shopping and health," Patterson wrote.
The KeyBanc analyst kept an Overweight rating on Meta stock, although he lowered his price target to $760 from $855, citing market volatility.
Meta shares were up 2.7% at $628.64 in early trading, adding to a 6.5% gain from the previous day.
Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@barrons.com
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 09, 2026 10:49 ET (14:49 GMT)
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