Artificial intelligence assistants are moving beyond chat windows and into the phone lines. Instinct, a startup building a personal AI agent, has begun letting some early-access users have its software place calls to businesses on their behalf. Meta is testing a similar outbound-calling capability for its Muse agent, which launched Sept. 8 and quickly climbed to the top of Apple's U.S. App Store.
Instinct founder Noah Shinn announced the feature, called Instinct Concierge, on Sept. 16. The company says the assistant can handle phone calls and other service tasks for users, such as calling a restaurant that does not take online reservations, asking to be added to a dentist's cancellation list, or trying to resolve a cable bill problem. The feature is rolling out in early access, with plans to expand availability over time.
The push reflects a broader shift in how AI agents are being designed. Instead of simply answering questions, these systems are meant to take actions across apps, websites, and connected accounts. Instinct's assistant can already work across linked services, and the company has given its assistants dedicated email addresses to help with account sign-ups and management. Users can also add other people to a trusted network so their assistants can communicate with one another for certain tasks.
Investors have taken notice. Instinct raised $250 million in an August Series B round that valued the company at $2.5 billion. On Sept. 28, it announced a $1 billion Series C round from investors including Sequoia Capital, Benchmark, and Coatue, valuing the company at $10 billion. The company is still available through private access and does not currently publish a monthly subscription price, nor has it announced separate pricing for Concierge or its phone-calling feature.
Meta's Muse, meanwhile, launched Sept. 8 as a personal AI agent that can browse the web, fill out forms, and complete tasks on a user's behalf. Meta has reportedly been testing an outbound-calling capability that lets some Muse users ask the agent to call U.S. businesses. That feature remains in limited testing rather than being broadly available. Muse is now available in the U.S. and Canada and can keep working after the app is closed. Meta says users choose which services Muse can access and how much permission it receives.
Interest in Muse has moved quickly. After its launch, it reached the top of Apple's U.S. App Store, and subsequent reports put its downloads above 3 million by late September. Muse has a free tier with a usage limit. Users who reach that limit can upgrade to a paid plan or wait for the free allowance to refresh. Meta says most people should be able to use Muse within the free tier. Paid plans have been reported at $20 a month and $100 a month, depending on additional usage needs. Meta has not announced separate pricing for the phone-calling capability it is testing.
The appeal of these agents is straightforward: give the software a goal, and it can carry the conversation without pulling the user away from other tasks. That could be especially useful for errands that take several steps or require waiting on someone else. The AI can stay on the job, gather the answer, and bring the result back.
But the more useful these agents become, the more control users hand over. If an AI can confirm details, make changes, or agree to something in a person's name, users need to know exactly where its authority begins and ends. The convenience is easy to see; the privacy tradeoff takes more digging. Instinct's privacy policy says its assistant can access information from connected apps and services when permission is granted, including messages, emails, and other private communications. Depending on how the assistant is used, it may also handle voice data, account credentials, and payment information. Instinct says health-related information could also enter the system, for example if a user asks the agent to book a medical appointment.
That kind of access can make an AI assistant much more useful, but it also gives the service a deeper window into a user's digital life. For now, the race between Instinct and Meta is less about whether AI can make a phone call and more about how much responsibility users are willing to delegate to software that speaks in their name.