Meta has released a new artificial intelligence model that users can download for free and run on their own personal computers, the company announced on August 10, 2026. The model, called Muse Glimmer, is built to handle tasks like scheduling and file management without requiring a connection to a remote server or cloud infrastructure.
According to Engadget, Muse Glimmer is based on Meta's Spark 1.2 closed model but has been compressed enough to run on a single graphics processing unit. Meta described its design goal directly: "We designed Muse Glimmer to balance capability against the memory and compute constraints of local hardware," the company wrote.
The weights that AI systems use to choose responses are available for free download on Hugging Face, a platform widely used by AI researchers and developers. Meta also published developer documentation alongside the release. The company said that optimized integrations would arrive on llama.cpp and other platforms, "so you can go from download to working agent in minutes."
Despite its small size, Meta says the model performs well on several standard benchmarks, including DeepSearch QA, MCP-Atlas, and SWE-Bench, which tests a model's ability to write and debug code. The model also supports multi-step reasoning, failure recovery, multimodal input, and compatibility with agent orchestrators including OpenClaw.
The release places Meta alongside competitors from China, particularly DeepSeek, which has also built models that run locally and carry open licensing terms. Meta's larger Muse Spark model has been seen as weaker than rivals from OpenAI and Anthropic, and the Muse Glimmer release appears to be a move toward attracting users who prefer local, private AI tools.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg accompanied the release with a written statement on the company's direction. "Rather than centralizing superintelligence, we should distribute it widely and give every person the ability to direct it," he said.
The release also comes against a backdrop of growing concern about AI security. NVIDIA recently launched the Open Secure AI Alliance to improve cyber defense after a rogue attack on Hugging Face by an unreleased, closed OpenAI model. Meta's decision to make Muse Glimmer's weights publicly available stands in contrast to that closed approach, though the model's open-source label carries quotation marks in some coverage, reflecting ongoing debate about what open source truly means in the AI industry.
Muse Glimmer is available now on Hugging Face with no cost to download or use.
