Rival AI agents Instinct and Meta’s Muse now support calling features

The market for text-based AI assistants is fiercely competitive, with Instinct, Wajo, Town, Ollie, and Meta’s newly launched Muse agent all vying for user attention and task management. Based in San Francisco, Instinct has emerged as a leading contender, drawing significant investor interest and reportedly achieving a valuation of $10 billion.

Instinct’s popularity is set to expand with the introduction of a new calling feature, allowing its agent to act as a digital concierge by placing calls on behalf of users. Meta’s Muse, another major player in this space, has implemented a similar capability.

Noah Shinn, founder of Instinct, announced on X that the startup’s new feature, Instinct Concierge, can handle tasks such as booking restaurants without online reservations, joining dentist cancellation lists, or resolving cable billing issues. The feature is currently available in early access to select users, with plans for a broader rollout.

Your Instinct can now handle phone calls.

Introducing Instinct Concierge – a white glove service meant to handle high-touch cases, such as making phone calls, high-end service booking, and more. You’ll be able to book the restaurant that doesn’t take online reservations, get on… pic.twitter.com/vGVnAJ1MF1

— Noah Shinn (@noahrshinn) September 16, 2026

While Instinct continues to ship updates rapidly, Meta’s Muse AI assistant is keeping pace. Muse has recently gained the ability to place calls to U.S. businesses. The tech giant stated that this feature will initially roll out to users who explicitly request it, serving as a demand signal. Meta noted that future features will prioritize users who have expressed interest in them.

These calling capabilities emerge as several rivals had previously highlighted their own calling features as advantages over Instinct. However, with the launch of Instinct’s Concierge, competitors are now roughly on equal footing regarding this functionality.

we just expanded the @Muse beta for outbound calls to US businesses, prioritizing folks who'd asked their Muse to let us know they wanted it first :)

if you're in, give it a shot and tell us what you think. phone calling was one of our top requests and your feedback helped make…

— Ryan Fox (@wailord) September 16, 2026

Last week, Instinct also introduced email addresses to enable the AI to handle account sign-ups and management. Additionally, the company now allows users’ assistants to communicate with other users’ assistants for task management, provided those users are part of a trusted network.

Both Instinct and Muse have experienced significant growth in recent weeks. Instinct recently raised $350 million at a $2.5 billion valuation and is reportedly negotiating to raise $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation, driven by strong investor interest in text-based assistants capable of operating across multiple platforms.

Analytics firm Sensor Tower reported that Muse surpassed the initial launch numbers of the Meta AI app. Muse secured over 730,000 downloads in the U.S. within its first few days, compared to 707,000 downloads for the Meta AI app in its first five days post-launch. At one point, Muse even reached the number 2 spot in the top charts.