Hertz lets Meta's Muse change rental bookings through Decagon pilot
The pilot, announced November 13, 2026, is among the first live channels between a personal agent and an enterprise's reservation system. Decagon, paid per conversation, now bills for resolutions that start inside Meta's Muse, over a protocol Meta builds with a direct rival.
Vincent Jiangthree-minute read
Two extra days, no phone call
Ask Meta's+2.23% — Meta, up 2.23 percent today Muse assistant to keep the Hertz car two extra days. On November 13, 2026, Decagon~$1.5B — Decagon, private, latest valuation ~$1.5B, an AI customer-service company in San Francisco, announced a pilot in which Muse sends that request down a dedicated agent-to-agent channel 1. Hertz's Decagon agent processes it under the Agent Operating Procedures, the workflow rules that already govern its chat and voice reservations, and the confirmed booking returns to the renter in the same conversation 1.
Decagon calls Hertz one of the first enterprises to give personal agents a direct channel, with Muse the first agent on it. Hertz keeps the controls: which requests an agent may make, and under which policy 1.
A toll priced per conversation
Decagon bills by the conversation, at higher rates for complex and voice queries 2. That fee schedule underwrites a $4.5 billion valuation, set in January 2026 by a $250 million Series D led by Coatue and Index Ventures and triple the $1.5 billion of June 2025 2. Sacra, a technology-research firm, puts annualized revenue at roughly $100 million as of July 2026; Decagon discloses none 2. The pilot adds a new class of billable traffic: resolutions that begin inside someone else's agent.
The road in is shared with a rival
The channel runs on Poppy, the open agent-to-agent standard that Sierra~$10B — Sierra, private, latest valuation ~$10B and Meta unveiled together in October; Unite.AI describes it as Meta's implementation of the open Personal Agent Protocol 13. Sierra, the customer-service AI firm led by former Salesforce−0.26% — Salesforce, down 0.26 percent today co-CEO Bret Taylor, released Poppy 1.0 on November 12 3.
Shopify has switched it on for every store, and Muse, which more than 10 million people have set up, now checks for Poppy first on every site it visits 3. Sierra is also a direct Decagon competitor in customer-service AI, alongside Salesforce and Zendesk 2. Decagon floated its own consent layer, the Personal Agent Consent and Trust Protocol, on October 6 4.
The same week, an airline shut the door
United moved to block personal agents from booking two days before Hertz opened its own channel to one. On November 11 it became the first US airline to restrict unauthorized third-party agents, with chief executive Scott Kirby saying, "I don't want to create another middleman" 5. OpenAI$1.18T — OpenAI, private, latest valuation $1.18T bought the AI travel agent Odessia the same week and shut the service immediately 6.
Fourteen percent and a proof point
Enterprise buyers wrote 14% of Decagon's 134 reviews on G2, the software review site, against 65% from mid-market 7; Hertz is the upmarket proof point. Chief executive Jesse Zhang said on November 12 he is still "extremely bullish" on open-weight AI even after Nvidia−3.21% — Nvidia, down 3.21 percent today chief executive Jensen Huang's resignation 8. Open weights point the cost of raw conversation in one direction: down. That leaves the workflow layer, the routing, trust, scopes and audit Hertz is testing, as the part worth billing 1.
Enterprise buyers wrote 14% of Decagon's reviews
Hertz is the proof point for the thinnest slice of Decagon's base
- Estimate
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Mid-market | 65% |
| Other (calc., est.) (estimate) | 21% |
| Enterprise | 14% |
Two tests, and a price nobody discloses
Delta already lets agents that authenticate a passenger finish a booking, and Airbnb's+2.44% — Airbnb, up 2.44 percent today own agent arrives in the first half of 2027 9. Large-language-model traffic still stayed below 1% of room nights at Booking Holdings−1.37% — Booking Holdings, down 1.37 percent today in the second quarter 9. Two readings decide this pilot: whether more personal agents connect on Hertz's channel without Hertz rebuilding its workflow 1, and whether Decagon's enterprise review share climbs from 14% by the second quarter of 2027 7. The number no one discloses is the one that settles the fee: the price of a resolution once the renter never opens the app.
Get Applications by email, free
How AI is changing the software people and companies use. In our daily email, every weekday.
Reader comments
0 comments