Meta’s Muse AI calls businesses—many just hang up

Muse AI now calls businesses—but many just hang up

More than 10 million people now use Meta’s Muse AI agent. Since September, paying subscribers in the U.S. can ask Muse to call businesses for them—whether to book a table, navigate a cable company’s phone tree, or wait on hold for the DMV.

The tool was tested quietly last month and rolled out widely this week, Meta AI chief Alexandr Wang said. It handles the kinds of calls that users dread: long, repetitive, and often frustrating. Meta plans to add a free email address to Muse soon, letting it send messages as well as make calls.

Businesses hang up on AI calls—Meta’s fix was temporary

The feature’s biggest problem? Businesses answer, hear an AI, and hang up.

Meta tried a workaround in September, temporarily using human operators to complete calls when AI alone failed. The company framed it as a learning phase, but it also underscored a deeper issue: even as synthetic voices sound more human, businesses remain wary.

Google faced the same resistance when it launched Duplex in 2018. At the time, about one in four calls still required a human to step in. Years later, the problem persists.

Meta isn’t the first—Google and xAI got there sooner

Meta is late to the AI calling game. Google’s Gemini, xAI’s Grok Bot, and a startup called Instinct already offer similar features. OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude, however, still can’t place calls.

For Meta, the advantage isn’t novelty—it’s scale. Muse already has 10 million users, giving it a built-in audience for the feature. That could help it catch up quickly, assuming businesses start playing along.

Quest 3 gets 3D Disney+ movies—including Avatar in high frame rate

While the AI calling feature struggles, Meta scored a win on the content front. Quest 3 and Quest 3S owners can now stream 3D movies through Disney+, including Marvel, Pixar, and Avatar films in high frame rate formats.

The Disney+ app for Quest also includes immersive environments—like a virtual theater—that weren’t possible on older headsets. Some of these films were previously exclusive to Apple’s Vision Pro.

3D on Quest 3 is bright—but the hardware falls short

The Quest 3’s 3D experience is brighter than a theater’s, Engadget’s Devindra Hardawar wrote, because the headset doesn’t dim the image like 3D glasses do. But the hardware has limits.

The speakers lack bass, and while the headset supports Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos, it can’t deliver true HDR or immersive audio without headphones. Meta’s Horizon OS also restricts how users can resize or move video windows, making it less flexible than Apple’s visionOS.

Still, the Quest 3’s cinema mode offers a passable workaround for watching movies in VR.

3D Disney+ is a teaser for Meta’s $1,300 VR Glasses in 2027

Meta didn’t enable 3D streaming for the Quest 2 or Quest 1, even though both headsets could technically support it. The move looks like a calculated one: Meta’s next VR device, a $1,300 pair of smart glasses, is due in 2027.

The lighter, more comfortable form factor of the upcoming hardware would make 3D movies far more enjoyable than on a bulky headset like the Quest 3, which launched in late 2023. By holding back the feature now, Meta may be priming users for a pricier upgrade.

What this means

Lazyfounder analysis — our interpretation, not reported fact.

Meta is betting on AI and VR to drive future hardware sales, but its success depends on overcoming business resistance to AI calls and justifying the high cost of its next-gen VR devices. Excluding older headsets from 3D content may accelerate upgrades—but risks alienating users stuck on cheaper hardware.

Key takeaways

• Businesses’ reluctance to engage with AI calls could limit the real-world utility of Muse’s new feature, despite Meta’s workaround of using human operators.
• The 3D Disney+ library on Quest 3 is a rare bright spot for VR content but is constrained by hardware limitations like weak speakers and lack of HDR.
• Meta’s decision to restrict 3D movies to newer headsets suggests a deliberate strategy to upsell users to its $1,300 VR Glasses in 2027.
• Competition in AI calling is fierce, with Google, xAI, and startups already offering similar services—but none have cracked the business adoption challenge.

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