AI Agent Startups Route Phone Calls, Other Tasks to Human Contractors

3.3 · 11h ago · US · AI

The Facts

  • AI agent startups Dazzle AI, Duckbill and Wajo AI are using human workers to complete tasks that AI agents cannot reliably do, such as phone calls, scheduling appointments and CAPTCHA tests. CNBC only
  • Duckbill recently debuted an API that lets companies building personal agents delegate tasks to human contract workers, which it breaks into small tasks. CNBC only
  • Duckbill CEO Meghan Joyce said the company runs background checks on its 1099 contractors, who are based in the United States, and also uses contract workers from contact center labor providers. CNBC only
  • Dazzle AI CEO Marissa Mayer said Dazzle checks frontier-model suggestions and sends certain tasks to human contractors. She said Dazzle conducts background checks and screens for discretion and judgment. CNBC only
  • Mayer said a Dazzle user's AI agent confused window glass with tabletop glass while handling several home renovation tasks. Dazzle's system flagged the task and a human resolved it within seconds. CNBC only
Dive deeper · 2 more factsShow less
  • Meta employees previously raised privacy concerns about an internal test in which human contractors handled phone calls for Meta's Muse AI agent. A Meta spokesperson said such testing is core to the product development process. CNBC only
  • Meta currently does not use humans to complete users' Muse requests. CNBC only

Context

AI agents from companies such as Meta and OpenAI can browse the web but still struggle with tasks involving phone calls, scheduling and real-world judgment, according to startup executives interviewed by CNBC. Several startups are adding human workers to fill those gaps.

The practice raises privacy questions, particularly if users are not told that humans may handle their requests. The startups say they screen contractors with background checks.

How the Agent Panel Scored This

Independent AI personas each scored importance 1–10; the story's score is a trimmed mean (highest and lowest votes dropped). Vote spread: 1.

4 News Editor This is a trade-press style feature about several niche startups routing tasks to human contractors, with a concrete new product (Duckbill's API) but limited scale and immediate impact on the broader public, though it touches on privacy questions.
3 Business Analyst This is a niche industry-practice story about small AI startups using human contractors, with limited immediate market impact and no major corporate action, regulatory shift, or market-moving data, though it raises privacy questions worth noting.
3 Informed Citizen This report describes startups using human contractors to backfill AI agent gaps, a niche business-model detail with limited immediate impact on ordinary people beyond some privacy questions.

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