Observed Signal · Jul 9, 2026 · Technical Release · Source: Trending Topics · Impact: 4/5 · Sentiment: Positive
Meta Opens Muse Spark 1.1 API to Developers with Aggressive Pricing
Meta has released Muse Spark 1.1, an updated version of its large language model, now available to outside developers as a public API preview for US developers through the new Meta Model API. This marks the first time Meta has charged businesses for access to its models, opening a new revenue stream. The update focuses on coding improvements, complex bug detection and fixing, longer multi-step tasks, and better support for end-to-end agentic workflows, along with native multimodal perception. Pricing is set at $1.25 per million input tokens and $4.25 per million output tokens, undercutting competitors such as SpaceXAI's Grok 4.5 and Anthropic's Opus. Meta frames the move as an attempt to close the gap with AI leaders OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. A more powerful model code-named 'Watermelon' is still in training and expected later this year.
Meta opens its LLM to outside developers via a paid API, marking a strategic shift toward monetizing AI models and intensifying the price war with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic.
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- Meta released Muse Spark 1.1 as a public API preview for US developers via the new Meta Model API.
- This is the first time Meta has charged businesses for access to its models.
- Muse Spark 1.1 is priced at $1.25 per million input tokens and $4.25 per million output tokens.
- The model powers features across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and the Meta AI app.
- Meta is developing a more powerful model code-named 'Watermelon' expected later this year.
Connected Companies & Entities
5 Entities mapped“Meta updated its large language model Muse Spark on Thursday and is making it available to outside developers for the first time....”
“The move comes during an especially busy stretch of model updates. In this week alone, OpenAI and SpaceXAI also debuted faster models....”
“Meta is trying to close the gap with AI leaders OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic....”
“it is cheaper than SpaceXAI's new Grok 4.5 and also undercuts Anthropic's Opus model....”
Ontology Mapping & Concepts
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