The Relay Race
Henry Kim ·
It is a relay race. And this baton has passed into the small business market. On October 12, Meta announced Muse Wonder. Yesterday. Its first frontier model. In independent evaluation, Wonder Full scored 56, right behind Claude Opus 5.5 at 58. Chasing first place at full acceleration.
This is the Meta that stumbled at first. Llama fell behind, the open-source strategy wavered. Then Meta recruited its fastest runner, rebuilt the organization, poured money into data centers. It overtook second and stuck right behind first. An organization that gets up where it fell is frightening. Having lost once, it fights a fight it cannot lose. For us watching, it is thrilling. Every company runs a relay. Models arrive like batons passed. Who is first changes monthly. Today's first is tomorrow's second, so the race never ends. For us watching, it is not a spectacle. Whoever wins, the winning model walks into our shop. Watching is preparation: which agent to shake hands with, which platform to open the door to. While watching, I decide my shop's door.
But the race is changing direction. It is no longer about model performance. It is about whose daily life it enters. Muse came out as an agent for small business. Through partnerships with Shopify, Stripe, and QuickBooks, search became seamless. A shop's sales, payments, and books connect inside one agent. The reason matters. The small business market is not a market of scale. It is a market of trust. Shop owners do not compare model performance. They use the agent that knows their shop. The giants entering means that market of trust is now worth money.
Amazon dropped out. It asked Meta to remove its shopping mall from Muse. But Amazon will also have to build its own agent. It must finish within the year and settle it. In the fight for first-mover advantage, you cannot talk without agents. Amazon's refusal is a signal. Platforms do not let someone else's agent onto their land. It is a territory war of the agent era. When each platform builds its own agent, shop owners will have to choose among several agents.
I should propose integrating with Muse too. I have personally connected a few things with Muse in my app, and it could not be more convenient. Wonder's core is Active Memory: it remembers context across conversations, continuing work from weeks and months ago. An agent with memory is an employee you do not have to explain everything to. That is what small business needs. This convenience will soon be standard, and before it is, I must bring it inside my agent. Integration is not a feature. It is survival. When the giant's agent and mine sit at the same table, an unconnected agent is isolated.
The giants have entered the small business market. The race is no longer about who is faster, but about who sits in whose shop first. The race never ends. The baton keeps passing. Whose agent is sitting in your shop?
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