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AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon feeling jittery due to new customer-empowering tool

Postpaid customers can use Meta Muse to negotiate better prices.

By Anam Hamid

Published: Sep 30, 2026, 10:31 AM

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But how different is Muse from price comparison sites? | Image by PhoneArena

AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon watched their stock prices dip after Meta announced its personal AI agent Muse earlier this month. The Big Three have reason to pay attention, but Wall Street's reaction is probably overblown.

The end of customer inertia?

Muse isn't just another chatbot. It can execute actions on a customer's behalf across apps. That capability means people can trust it to handle tasks they routinely put off, like haggling with service providers for better rates.

But how well does it actually work? A new report from Fierce Network paints a mixed picture.

Ookla Lead Industry Analyst Mike Dano gave Muse a spin to see if it could lower his phone bill. After all, why lose your mind over a carrier's automated system when your own bot can take it on instead?

Dano noted that while creating a Muse account was a breeze, authenticating it was a long process that required him to hand over security codes texted by the carrier.

Once set up, Dano realized that his carrier only offered the chat option within its own app, a walled garden Muse couldn't enter.

The only problem was that my carrier stopped offering a chat function on its website. After several tries, the only customer service chat that would work was the one inside my carrier’s smartphone app – a place where Muse can’t reach..

Mike Dano, Ookla Lead Industry Analyst, September 2026

Dano isn't the only one questioning whether customers could use Muse to wait through long calls and help drive down their bills. Analysts at TD Cowen believe that while some customers may be able to snag discounts in the short run, the carriers will have an advantage in the longer run.

It would be reasonable to believe that while it is possible that some consumers may be able to get a lower phone plan in the short term, in the long run the carriers will have the upper hand. Further, service providers still have disciplined parameters, essentially a ‘floor’ on what they can offer the customer in retention situations.

Greg Williams , TD Cowen analyst, September 2026

Carriers have price floors, and no amount of automated bargaining is going to breach that line.

Besides, most postpaid customers may not necessarily be hunting for lower prices, or else there would have been an exodus to MVNOs, which rely on the same network. Most customers have already clinched a pretty good deal, and public promotional pricing isn't always lower than what customers pay anyway.

Also, the advertised prices an AI agent uses as a baseline to bargain aren't usually the lowest prices. Carriers typically hold back their best retention offers until a customer calls to cancel or barges into a physical store with an ultimatum.

On top of that, carriers employ their own powerful AI models that Muse may struggle to outmaneuver.

Claude and ChatGPT have been around for a long time, and they can be used to research a cheaper option. However, prices are pretty competitive already, and most customers don't want to go through the hassle of switching carriers to save 5 or 10 bucks a month.

How will you use Muse to save money?

2 Votes

Retention tactics

Recon Analytics founder Roger Entner echoed that perspective, highlighting that price comparison sites are nothing new. While he acknowledged that Muse makes everything easier, he noted that switching carriers remains a complicated process that price alone won't solve.

This just makes it even easier.

Roger Entner, Recon Analytics founder, September 2026

Most of all, Entner argued that businesses such as Planet Fitness are more at risk than carriers. That's because customers stop going to gyms outright after a short burst of motivation, but keep paying out of habit.

Don't disregard Muse

Wolfe Research analyst Peter Supino notes that carrier stocks are down 12.5% since Muse's launch. In the worst-case scenarios for carriers, Muse could stoke a price war. However, until Muse learns how to manage the entire switching process, its ability to cause churn is limited.

Carriers can also insulate themselves by blocking AI bots from negotiating entirely.

Until Muse is proven to be harmless for carriers, they will continue to be jittery.

Don't abandon it until you have tried it

A series of direct and indirect increases mean that many customers dread their monthly bills. Rising telecom prices may be the reason the Federal Reserve recently hiked interest rates.

While subscribers usually avoid the hassle of switching carriers, Muse can give them the push they need.

All carriers have raised prices this year:

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Anam Hamid is a computer scientist turned tech journalist who has a keen interest in the tech world, with a particular focus on smartphones and tablets. She has previously written for Android Headlines and has also been a ghostwriter for several tech and car publications. Anam is not a tech hoarder and believes in using her gadgets for as long as possible. She is concerned about smartphone addiction and its impact on future generations, but she also appreciates the convenience that phones have brought into our lives. Anam is excited about technological advancements like folding screens and under-display sensors, and she often wonders about the future of technology. She values the overall experience of a device more than its individual specs and admires companies that deliver durable, high-quality products. In her free time, Anam enjoys reading, scrolling through Reddit and Instagram, and occasionally refreshing her programming skills through tutorials.

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