Text-based AI assistants are competing for user attention, and two leading agents—Instinct and Meta’s Muse—have both added outbound calling. Instinct announced Instinct Concierge, a feature that places calls on behalf of users for tasks such as booking restaurants that don’t take online reservations, getting on a dentist’s cancellation list, or resolving cable bill issues. Founder Noah Shinn said the feature is rolling out in early access to some users and will expand to all users over time.

Meta’s Muse also gained the ability to call U.S. businesses, with the rollout prioritizing users who had previously asked Muse to let them make calls. Meta uses those requests as a feature-request mechanism, saying new features will be available first to people who ask Muse about them. The calling additions close a gap: several rivals had touted phone calls as an advantage over Instinct, and now the major assistants are at parity on this front. Instinct has also expanded beyond chat recently, adding email addresses so the assistant can handle account sign-up and management, and allowing users’ assistants to contact other people’s assistants through a trusted network.

Both products have shown momentum. Instinct raised $350 million at a $2.5 billion valuation last month and 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. Analytics firm Sensor Tower noted Muse outgrew the Meta AI app launch in its first days, with over 730,000 U.S. downloads compared with 707,000 for the Meta AI app in the first five days after launch; Muse also reached No. 2 in the top charts at one point.