Rival AI agents, Instinct and Meta’s Muse, both add the ability to make calls

Two leading text-based AI assistants, Instinct and Meta’s Muse, have added outbound calling capabilities that let agents place phone calls to U.S. businesses and perform concierge-style tasks. Instinct’s new feature, Instinct Concierge, is rolling out in early access and Meta says Muse’s calling ability is expanding to users who request it during beta testing.

By AI Newsroom· Reviewed by Pranav, Founder & Editor-in-ChiefPublished about 12 hours agoUpdated about 3 hours ago0 views

Rival AI agents, Instinct and Meta’s Muse, both add the ability to make calls

Why It Matters

Adding voice calling moves AI agents beyond text orchestration into real-world interactions like booking services and resolving customer-service issues, a capability investors and users have been watching closely as competition heats up among assistant apps.

Key Facts

Product updates: Instinct launched 'Instinct Concierge' for making phone calls and high-touch bookings; Meta’s Muse expanded outbound calls to U.S. businesses in beta.
Rollout approach: Instinct Concierge is in early access for some users with plans to expand; Muse’s calling rollout prioritizes users who asked Muse for the feature.
Founder announcement: Instinct founder Noah Shinn posted about the feature on X (Twitter) on September 16, 2026.
Instinct recent features: Instinct recently added email addresses for account sign-up/management and a trusted network that lets assistants contact other users' assistants.
Funding and valuation: Instinct raised $350 million at a $2.5 billion valuation last month and is reportedly in talks to raise $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation.

Text-first AI assistants are racing to add real-world interaction capabilities, and two of the market’s most visible players have just extended into phone calling. San Francisco startup Instinct announced a new service called Instinct Concierge that allows users’ agents to place calls on their behalf to handle tasks such as booking restaurants that lack online reservations, joining cancellation lists, or resolving service issues. The company said the feature is available to a subset of users in early access and will expand over time.

Meta’s Muse has matched that functionality in its own beta expansion. Meta said it has broadened outbound calling to U.S. businesses and is prioritizing rollout to users who specifically asked Muse to enable the feature, effectively using user requests as a gate for early access. Both firms presented calling as a way for agents to perform higher-touch, real-world tasks beyond text interactions.

Instinct has been moving quickly on multiple fronts: in addition to Concierge, it recently introduced email-address-based handling for account sign-ups and added a trusted network capability that lets a user’s assistant contact other users’ assistants to manage some tasks. The company has drawn investor attention, having raised $350 million at a $2.5 billion valuation last month and reportedly engaging in talks to secure $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation.

Adoption momentum for Muse has been notable as well: analytics firm Sensor Tower reported that Muse surpassed the Meta AI app’s initial launch downloads in the U.S., generating more than 730,000 downloads in its first few days versus 707,000 for the Meta AI app over its first five days. The competition over features like outbound calling — which several rivals had been promoting as an edge over Instinct — appears to be narrowing as multiple assistants now offer similar calling capabilities.