Instinct and Meta's Muse AI Agents Both Add Phone-Calling Features Within Hours of Each Other

Two rival AI assistants ship calling features on the same day

Instinct and Meta's Muse, two competing text-based AI agent products, both announced the ability to place phone calls on behalf of users on September 16, 2026 — putting the rivals at feature parity in a fast-moving market for AI assistants that can act across surfaces beyond chat.

Instinct founder Noah Shinn announced the feature, called Instinct Concierge, on X. According to Shinn, the tool is a "white glove service" designed for high-touch tasks: booking restaurants that don't accept online reservations, getting users on a dentist's cancellation list, or resolving cable billing disputes. The feature is currently in early access for select users, with Instinct planning a broader rollout over time.

Meta's Muse, which launched as a standalone app last week, matched the move on the same day. According to Meta employee Ryan Fox, who posted on X, Muse's outbound calling capability is rolling out first to users who specifically requested it — a pattern Meta says it will use for future Muse feature launches. Fox said phone calling was one of the app's most-requested features.

The near-simultaneous announcements follow weeks in which other rivals in the space — including Wajo, Town, and Ollie — had touted calling ability as a competitive edge over Instinct. With Concierge now live, Instinct has closed that gap.

Instinct's broader push into autonomous tasks

Calling is not Instinct's only recent addition. Last week the company also rolled out dedicated email addresses for its agents, allowing Instinct to handle account sign-ups and manage user accounts directly. Instinct has also introduced a "trusted network" feature, letting users' assistants contact other people's assistants to coordinate tasks — for example, scheduling between two parties without either person messaging directly.

Traction and funding

Both products have seen rapid growth. Instinct raised $350 million at a $2.5 billion valuation last month and, according to reports, is now in talks to raise $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation — a 4x jump in roughly a month if finalized.

Meta's Muse has also shown strong early traction. Analytics firm Sensor Tower reported that Muse's standalone app drew over 730,000 U.S. downloads in its first five days, outpacing the Meta AI app's 707,000 downloads over the same early window after its own launch. Muse reportedly reached the No. 2 spot on the top app charts at one point.

Pricing for either calling feature has not been disclosed by Instinct or Meta.

What this means

The simultaneous launch signals that phone-calling is becoming table stakes for AI agent products rather than a differentiator — companies are racing to close feature gaps almost in real time. The bigger story is what these agents are being trusted to do: booking services, managing accounts, and now negotiating with other people's assistants directly. That points toward an agent ecosystem where AI-to-AI communication, not just AI-to-human, becomes a normal way of getting tasks done. Investor appetite reflects this shift — a potential 4x valuation jump for Instinct in a single month suggests markets believe autonomous task-completion agents, not chatbots, are the next major consumer AI category. Whether users trust an AI to negotiate on the phone with a business, and whether businesses adapt to AI callers, remains the open question.