Text your AI assistant an instruction, get a phone call made

One line, sent from your own phone

"Book a table for four at Lucia's, Friday 7:30. 8:15 is fine if they're full." That's the whole instruction. You send it as an ordinary text message to your assistant's phone number, from the checkout line or the sideline of a soccer game, and put your phone back in your pocket.

What makes it work is who it's from. The line knows your mobile number, so a text from you isn't treated as a message from a stranger. It's an instruction for your AI assistant. The assistant places the call to the restaurant, has the conversation, and you get a written summary of what was agreed. You don't open an app and you don't log in to anything. The only thing to remember is a contact in your phone.

What happens after you press send

First, the text arrives and is saved. Texts to the line always arrive, and they sit in your history next to the calls and the email.

Next, your assistant gets it. If you've connected one (Grok, ChatGPT, Claude and others all work) and switched on the setting called Bot push, the assistant is started the second your text lands, with your instruction as its task. Without push, the instruction waits on the line and your assistant collects it at its next check-in.

Then comes the call, which goes like any other. The assistant says on whose behalf it's calling, says it's an AI if asked, and never pays for anything. Afterwards you get the summary. The line works on its own as well, by the way: you can call it, text it, and ask it to make calls from your dashboard. How it works has the full picture.

Instructions that work first time

Good ones are short, and they sound like what you'd say to a capable person on their second week in the job.

• "Call Mike's Plumbing and ask when he can look at a leaking water heater. I'm home after 3 any day this week."
• "Move my haircut on Thursday to next week. Same time if they have it, any afternoon if not."
• "Ring the hotel in Denver, confirmation 84213, and ask for early check-in on the 12th. We land at 9am."
• "Ask the pharmacy on Main Street if the refill is ready to pick up."
• "Get me a price for gutter cleaning from these three companies." (Then the three names.)

The pattern behind them

Who to call. What you want. When. And what you'd take if the first answer is no. Four parts, and the last is the one that saves you a second round.

Compare "book dinner Friday" with the restaurant text at the top. The short version isn't wrong, but it leaves questions open. Where? How many? What if they're full? Each missing answer is a trip back to you. We've collected more examples in how to write a call brief.

Don't wait for a text back

Here's the limit, stated plainly. Your line receives texts. It doesn't hold a text conversation. Texts from the line are limited for now, because US carriers only deliver business texts from numbers that have cleared a registration process, and ours is in progress. A reply could be filtered on the way and never land, so we don't lean on it.

In practice that means two things. The result of your instruction reaches you as a written summary, not as a text bubble. And anything that has to reach somebody else (the confirmation for the plumber, the address for the venue) goes as a call or an email, and both of those work today. The line has its own email address for exactly this.

The same applies when a stranger texts your line. Their message arrives and is saved, and you can read it in your history. The line can't text them back for now.

What to leave out of a text

Card numbers, passwords and security answers. The assistant never gives out a card number on a call and never agrees to a charge, so sending it one would be pointless anyway. If a call turns out to need payment, it comes back to you as a decision.

Leave out the life story, too. The restaurant doesn't need to know why it's Friday. Two lines is plenty.

When to call the line instead

Text when the instruction fits in a line or two and you can't talk. In a meeting, on a train, standing in a quiet waiting room.

Call when you're driving, or when there are several things to hand over at once, or when it's easier to explain out loud than to type. When you ring your own line, what you say is an instruction in just the same way. You can hear how the assistant sounds by calling Lilly, our own AI agent, on (949) 368-9902.

And for a rule of thumb on which channel the assistant should use with other people, call, text or email goes through it. The short version: if it has to arrive, it's a call or an email.

Common questions

More on everyday use

• Let an AI wait on hold for you
• How an AI books a restaurant table by phone
• Using AI to schedule and move appointments by phone
• AI call screening: what happens when a stranger calls your line