Instinct and Meta’s Muse Both Add Phone Calling Features for AI Assistants
Instinct Concierge and Meta’s Muse can now call U.S. businesses, closing a gap with rival assistants. Instinct’s feature is in early access for restaurant bookings and dentist cancellation lists, while Muse initially targets users who request calls.
Two of the leading AI assistant platforms, Instinct and Meta’s Muse, both announced the ability to place phone calls on behalf of users in September 2026, bringing them to parity with rivals that had previously touted calling as a competitive advantage.
Instinct founder Noah Shinn announced the feature — called Instinct Concierge — on X on September 16, 2026. The feature allows the AI assistant to handle tasks such as booking restaurants that don’t accept online reservations, getting users onto dentist cancellation lists, and resolving issues with cable bills. The rollout is currently in early access for some users, with plans to expand to all users over time.
Meta’s Muse, which launched the week prior, also gained the ability to place calls to U.S. businesses. Meta said the feature will first be available to users who ask Muse to make a call — a mechanism the company uses to prioritize new features for users who express interest in them.
San Francisco-based Instinct is one of the most prominent players in the text-based AI assistant market, which also includes Wajo, Town, and Ollie. The startup 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. Separately, Instinct recently added email addresses to let its assistant handle account sign-up and management, and introduced a trusted network feature allowing users’ assistants to contact one another.
Muse has also shown strong early traction. Analytics firm Sensor Tower reported that Muse surpassed the Meta AI app’s launch performance, drawing over 730,000 U.S. downloads in its first days compared to 707,000 for Meta AI over its first five days post-launch. Muse reached the number two position in app store charts at one point.
The simultaneous rollout of calling features by both platforms suggests the capability is becoming a baseline expectation in the AI assistant market, as investor and user interest in the category continues to grow.