Instinct and Meta Muse both added phone calls. Now what?
Published 20 September 2026
In September 2026, Instinct and Meta Muse both announced that their assistants can place phone calls on your behalf. Book the table, chase the refund, ask the clinic whether they have a slot on Thursday. It is the obvious next step for any assistant that wants to finish tasks rather than describe them, and it is genuinely useful.
Why calling matters
Most of the things people actually need done still end at a phone number. Restaurants that never answer email. Clinics with no online booking. The airline whose refund form quietly fails. An assistant that can only browse hits that wall constantly. One that can call gets past it.
So this is real progress, and both teams deserve the credit for shipping it.
What it doesn't change
Instinct is still invite-only. A calling feature you cannot reach is a press release, not a product. And Instinct's terms still allow it to act without checking with you first — which is a much bigger deal once it can speak to a human on your behalf.
Muse is still US-first. European accounts get features later, in reduced form, on no published schedule. Calling is exactly the kind of capability that regulatory work slows down.
In both cases the constraint is not the technology. It is access.
How Norma handles calls
Norma calls too, and the rules around it are the point. She asks before she commits you to anything — a booking, a spend, a cancellation. She never reports a task as done until she has verified it actually happened. She tells you what was said on the call. She does not train on your data. And she works in the EU.
Access is a public line. A new batch gets in every Friday, in order. No invite, no region ladder.
The assistant you can actually get into.
Want in? Join the line.