Two AI Assistants Learned to Make Phone Calls on the Same Day
Instinct and Meta's Muse both added outbound calling on 16 September, closing a gap that rivals had been exploiting for weeks.
Key points
- Instinct, a text-based AI assistant startup reportedly valued at $10 billion, launched a calling feature called Instinct Concierge on 16 September 2026.
- Meta's Muse, a standalone AI assistant app separate from the older Meta AI app, added outbound calls to U.S. Businesses the same day.
- Muse topped 730,000 U.S. Downloads in its first five days, edging past the 707,000 downloads the Meta AI app logged over the same window at its own launch, per Sensor Tower.
- Instinct closed a $350 million round at a $2.5 billion valuation last month and is reportedly in talks for a further $1 billion raise at a $10 billion valuation.
Two of the busiest AI assistant apps crossed the same milestone on the same day, and the timing was not a coincidence.
On 16 September 2026, Instinct founder Noah Shinn announced Instinct Concierge, a feature that turns the app into something closer to a human personal assistant. It can ring a restaurant that only takes reservations by phone, call your dentist's office to get on a cancellation list, or handle a billing dispute. You describe the task; the AI picks up the phone.
We first covered Instinct in August, when early testers found the invite-only app had retained their emails without permission. The startup has moved quickly since then: a $350 million raise at a $2.5 billion valuation closed last month, and talk of a fresh round at $10 billion is now circulating.
Instinct Concierge is in early access, with a wider rollout planned later. Last week the company also gave each user a dedicated email address for account management, and it now lets users add each other to a trusted network so their assistants can coordinate tasks directly. Those two additions quietly matter as much as calling does.
What is Meta doing here?
Muse, which Meta launched separately from its older Meta AI product, added the same capability the same day. It can now place outbound calls to U.S. Businesses, with access going first to users who had already asked for the feature inside the app. Meta says that will be its standard pattern: ask Muse about a capability and you move to the front of the queue when it ships.
The download figures suggest Muse arrived with real momentum. Sensor Tower counted over 730,000 U.S. Downloads in the app's first five days, ahead of the 707,000 the Meta AI app recorded over the same window at launch. Muse briefly hit the number two spot in the app store charts.
Meta has been moving across several fronts at once. It recently began selling monthly subscription bundles combining Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp with extra AI features, and it is also building a camera-free version of its smart glasses. Calling fits a pattern of Meta treating AI as infrastructure running beneath every product it owns.
What does this mean for ordinary people?
The immediate upside is practical: if you hate sitting on hold or feel awkward negotiating by phone, the assistant handles it. It speaks, waits on hold, responds to prompts from the business, and reports back.
The harder question is what happens when the assistant gets something wrong. A misunderstood booking or an unauthorised change to a bill is more difficult to fix when a machine made the call. Neither company has publicly detailed the guardrails governing these conversations, and that gap is worth watching.
The competitive picture here is also telling. Several rivals had been promoting phone-calling as an advantage over Instinct specifically. That window closed in a single day. The assistants are now level on features; the next real gap will probably be reliability.
Common questions
Do I need to be on a paid plan to use these calling features?
Instinct Concierge is in early access and final pricing has not been announced. Muse's calling feature is going out free to users who requested it, though Meta now sells paid AI bundles alongside its free products.
Can the AI make international calls?
Muse's outbound calling is currently limited to U.S. Businesses. Instinct has not published geographic restrictions, though the early-access rollout suggests its scope is still expanding.
