Text-based AI assistants are a crowded market, with Instinct, Wajo, Town, Ollie, and Meta’s Muse agent vying for attention. Instinct launched last week and reportedly commands a $10 billion valuation.
That figure may rise further as the startup adds a new calling feature. Instinct Concierge lets the agent place calls and act as a concierge. Meta’s Muse has done the same.
Instinct’s founder Noah Shinn announced on X that the new feature can book restaurants without online reservations, get users on a dentist’s cancellation list, or sort out cable bill problems. The feature is rolling out in early access to some users, with plans to expand to all users in time.
Meta’s Muse AI assistant is keeping pace. It also just gained the ability to place calls to U.S. businesses. The tech giant said the feature will first roll out to users who ask Muse to make a call. This serves as a feature request mechanism, and Meta said that whenever Muse launches new features, they’ll be available first to people who ask Muse about them.
These calling features arrive as rivals had been touting their ability to make calls as an advantage over Instinct. With Instinct’s Concierge feature rollout, they’re all now in parity with each other on this front.
Last week, Instinct also rolled out email addresses to let Instinct handle account sign-up and management. The company additionally now allows its users’ assistants to contact other people’s assistants for managing certain tasks, by adding those users to a trusted network.
Both Instinct and Muse have seen great traction over the last few weeks. Instinct raised $350 million at a $2.5 billion valuation last month, and it is reportedly in talks to raise $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation, with investors showing heavy interest in text-based assistants that can navigate different surfaces for users.
Analytics firm Sensor Tower noted that Muse outgrew the Meta AI app launch in the first few days. The app garnered over 730,000 downloads in the U.S., compared to the Meta AI app, which was downloaded 707,000 times post-launch in the first five days. The app even reached the number 2 position in the top charts at one point.
What it means
Users can now delegate phone calls directly to their agents. This removes the need to manually dial for routine tasks like booking appointments or resolving utility issues. The market has reached a point where the primary differentiator is no longer the ability to call, but how well the agent executes the conversation.
