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🔍 Read the full analysis: The Numbers Behind Meta’s Muse Ember: Score 36 And 14 Cents Per Task on ThorstenMeyerAI.com

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TL;DR

Meta released Muse Ember on November 9, 2026. Artificial Analysis gives its max-effort version an Intelligence Index score of 36 and estimates an index task costs $0.14, compared with $0.41 for Claude Haiku 5.5 at the same score. The benchmark also finds weaker factual accuracy but a higher rate of refusals and a lower hallucination rate for Muse Ember; results may differ on real workloads.

Meta released Muse Ember on November 9, and an Artificial Analysis evaluation gives its max-effort version an Intelligence Index score of 36, equal to Claude Haiku 5.5’s score but with a reported average cost of $0.14 per index task versus $0.41. The comparison makes Muse Ember a lower-cost option in this benchmark, while the same evaluation shows weaker factual accuracy and more frequent refusals.

Artificial Analysis says the Intelligence Index combines nine evaluations. Its estimated cost per task is the average API cost of completing one task in that index, not a guaranteed price for a customer’s particular application. The results are specific to the tested settings: Muse Ember (max) scored 36, while its xhigh setting scored 34 at a reported $0.12 per index task. At max effort, Claude Haiku 5.5 also scored 36 and cost $0.41 per task in the comparison.

Meta’s listed rates for Muse Ember are $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens. The source says those rates match Haiku 5.5 and GPT-6 Luna, while Muse Ember’s cached input rate is $0.004 per million tokens, 60% below Haiku’s. Artificial Analysis attributes the gap in task costs to cheaper cached input and Muse Ember using roughly a third as many output tokens as Haiku 5.5 to complete the index.

The model accepts text and images and generates text. Meta offers it through its API and its Muse Code coding agent. Artificial Analysis reports output speed of 440 tokens per second and an index completion time of 3.2 minutes for the max setting, with a one-million-token context window. Those figures describe the benchmark setup and should not be treated as a promise of performance on every request.

At a glance
reportWhen: Released November 9, 2026; benchmark da…
The developmentMeta released Muse Ember, an efficient-tier model that Artificial Analysis says matches Claude Haiku 5.5’s index score of 36 at a lower estimated cost per benchmark task.
AI models · Briefing

Meta’s Muse Ember Score 36, lower benchmark cost

Artificial Analysis reports that Muse Ember matches Claude Haiku 5.5’s Intelligence Index score at a lower estimated cost per task. The benchmark also finds trade-offs in factual accuracy and refusals.

$0.14
Muse Ember cost per index task
36
Muse Ember max-effort score
$0.41
Haiku 5.5 cost per index task
36
Haiku 5.5 index score

What the comparison shows

The task-cost figures are benchmark estimates, not guaranteed costs for a company’s own workload.

Muse Ember
  • Lower estimated index-task cost: $0.14
  • Higher refusal rate in the factual-question test
  • Lower reported hallucination rate in that test
Claude Haiku 5.5
  • Estimated index-task cost: $0.41
  • Same Intelligence Index score: 36
  • Higher factual accuracy in the AA-Omniscience test

Performance depends on the task

Results vary across the reported evaluations; one overall score does not establish which model will fit a specific workflow.

EvaluationMuse EmberHaiku 5.5Reported edge
AutomationBench-AA68.1%35.4%Muse Ember
AA-Briefcase1,521 Elo1,574 EloHaiku 5.5
Terminal-Bench 4.040.9%32.8%Muse Ember
FrontierCode 2.027.2%34.9%Haiku 5.5

Factual answers and refusals

On AA-Omniscience, which allows models to decline questions rather than guess, the results were mixed.

Ember correct21.1%
Ember declined64%
Ember hallucination rate17.4%
Haiku correct34.7%

What drives the cost gap

Artificial Analysis attributes the lower index-task estimate to test usage, not simply to headline token rates.

1
Similar listed token rates

The report lists both models at $0.10 per million input tokens and $0.50 per million output tokens.

2
Cheaper cached input

Muse Ember’s cached input rate is listed at $0.004 per million tokens, 60% below Haiku’s.

3
Fewer output tokens

In the index test, Ember used roughly a third as many output tokens as Haiku 5.5.

Benchmark caveatActual costs and performance depend on prompts, context, caching, output volume and the quality bar. Test representative workflows and check current pricing before deployment.
The takeaway
Muse Ember matches Haiku 5.5’s reported score at a lower benchmark-task cost, but teams should validate accuracy, refusals and total cost on their own work.

Lower Cost Comes With Trade-offs

For companies running high-volume, repetitive tasks, the reported price difference could make a lower-cost model worth testing. The benchmark’s $0.14 versus $0.41 figures suggest a substantially lower average cost for this particular index workload. But they do not establish savings for other tasks: actual costs depend on prompts, context length, caching, output volume and the quality bar a deployment needs to meet.

The measured strengths are uneven. On AutomationBench-AA, Muse Ember scored 68.1%, matching Meta’s more expensive Muse Wonder and exceeding Haiku 5.5’s 35.4% in the source’s comparison. On the GDP.pdf document test, Ember scored 22.8% against Haiku’s 20.8%, but it trailed Haiku on the AA-Briefcase knowledge-work test, with scores of 1,521 and 1,574 Elo respectively. Coding results also differed by test: Ember led on Terminal-Bench 4.0, 40.9% to 32.8%, but fell behind on FrontierCode 2.0, 27.2% to 34.9%.

That mix matters more than a single overall score for buyers choosing a model. A system that performs well on workflows but less well on factual recall may suit tasks grounded in supplied documents, while requiring a different model or human review for open-ended questions. Artificial Analysis also reports a Coding Agent Index score of 46 for Ember in Muse Code, compared with 37 for Haiku in Claude Code and 31 for GPT-6 Luna in Codex. Those tool-specific results do not establish that Ember is better for every coding task.

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How the Benchmark Prices Models

Muse Ember is described in the source as the efficient tier of Meta’s Muse model line, rather than Meta’s highest-scoring model. In the same Artificial Analysis comparison, Muse Wonder scored 44 and cost $6.95 per index task. The source also lists Claude Fable 5.2 at its highest effort level with a score of 65 and a task cost of $26.54. These comparisons show how benchmark cost can rise alongside score, but they do not establish a universal relationship between price and usefulness.

The benchmark’s task-cost estimate is distinct from the listed token price. An index task can involve repeated input, cached context and generated output, so models with similar per-token rates can have different total costs. Artificial Analysis says Muse Ember used less cached input cost and fewer output tokens than Haiku 5.5 during its tests. The reported savings therefore depend on the index’s prompts and usage pattern, not just Meta’s headline token rates.

Artificial Analysis’s AA-Omniscience test adds another dimension. It allows a model to decline questions rather than guess. Muse Ember answered 21.1% correctly and declined 64% of questions; its reported hallucination rate was 17.4%. Haiku 5.5 answered 34.7% correctly and had a 34.2% hallucination rate in the same comparison. These measures describe that test, not the probability of an error in every real-world interaction.

“The same benchmark work costs about a third.”

— Thorsten Meyer, ThorstenMeyerAI.com

Benchmark Results Have Limits

The figures cited here come from Artificial Analysis tests and model pages accessed on November 9 and 10, 2026, as reported by ThorstenMeyerAI.com. The source does not provide enough detail to independently reproduce the full evaluation or verify the cost estimates. Benchmark scores are not production guarantees, and it is not clear how closely the index’s task mix reflects any particular business’s workload.

The comparison also leaves practical questions open: how performance changes with different prompts, model settings, data sources and API usage; whether the listed prices remain current; and how often a deployment would need to route refused or uncertain answers to another system. The reported refusal and hallucination rates come from one factual-question test and should not be generalized to every subject or task.

Test Costs on Real Workflows

The immediate next step for prospective users is to evaluate Muse Ember on their own representative tasks, comparing cost, accuracy, refusal behavior, latency and the amount of human review required. For work based on company documents or retrieved information, testing should include whether the model uses supplied evidence reliably. For open-ended factual queries, teams should measure how refusals and incorrect answers affect the process.

Meta’s API and Muse Code are the listed routes for access in the source report. The report does not specify a later product milestone or a date for additional benchmark results. Current pricing, access terms and model behavior should be checked with Meta before deployment, and future independent evaluations may clarify how the benchmark results translate to everyday use.

Key Questions

What did Artificial Analysis report about Muse Ember’s score and cost?

For the max-effort setting, Artificial Analysis reported an Intelligence Index score of 36 and an average cost of $0.14 per index task. It reported the same score for Claude Haiku 5.5 at $0.41 per task. The cost figures are benchmark estimates, not fixed prices for every user workload.

Does Muse Ember have the same token prices as Claude Haiku 5.5?

The source report says both models list input at $0.10 per million tokens and output at $0.50 per million. It reports Muse Ember’s cached input price at $0.004 per million tokens, 60% less than Haiku’s, and says Ember generated fewer output tokens during the index test.

How does Muse Ember handle questions it cannot answer?

On Artificial Analysis’s AA-Omniscience test, Muse Ember declined 64% of questions. Its reported accuracy was 21.1% and hallucination rate 17.4% on that evaluation. These results apply to the test and do not predict every interaction.

Is Muse Ember better than Haiku 5.5 for coding?

The results are mixed. Muse Ember scored higher on Terminal-Bench 4.0, while Haiku 5.5 scored higher on FrontierCode 2.0. The source also reports a higher Coding Agent Index score for Ember in Meta’s Muse Code than for Haiku in Claude Code, but tool-specific scores do not show that one model will perform better on every coding job.

Source: ThorstenMeyerAI.com

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