Meta tested call-center contractors behind Muse AI calls for half its staff

Last week, Meta turned on a test for half of its employees in which call-center contractors quietly made some of the phone calls requested through its Muse AI agent, according to internal company posts seen by Reuters.

The company has rolled back that test for now.

Person-placed dialing reached 95% to 98% success in early trials

Muse, launched on September 8, is built to send e-mails, shop and book travel on its own. Its calling feature dials U.S. businesses to schedule haircuts, check if a store has an item, or get quotes from contractors.

Meta started testing calling with employees in August and slowly rolled it out to Muse users after the app’s launch.

Some businesses hung up on the agent. One employee said that an insurance company kept hanging up the phone once it heard Muse was an AI.

Last week, Meta then enabled “human agent calls” for half of its employees. Employees could join an opt-out group, and Muse could pass a request to a trained agent who made the call and worked it through.

A Meta Superintelligence Labs vice president told employees tests showed that the success rate of calls made by humans could be boosted to 95% to 98%. AI-only calling wasn’t as successful, she said.

A racist remark on a cable bill call preceded the rollback

Employees warned that the sensitive information users provide to Muse could be leaked to call-center contractors. Some pointed to Meta’s launch pitch that each Muse agent runs in its own isolated virtual machine.

One employee who had Muse negotiate a cable bill said the call transcript showed the contractor made a racist remark.

The vice president said it was a miss to start contractor-placed calls without proper disclosures, and Meta had rolled the feature back for now. The contractor in question would not work on Meta projects again, she said.

Meta spokesperson Daniel Roberts said the test is to garner feedback so that Meta can build in protections for safety and privacy before any public release.

“We’re working with merchants to continue improving this potential calling feature and will only roll it out when it’s ready and with the proper disclosures,” Roberts said.

Muse has passed 2.5 million downloads. Since the launch, Meta’s stock has leapt more than 20%, adding more than $200 billion to its market value.

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