Instinct raised $1 billion in Series C funding from Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital, and Coatue at a $10 billion valuation, giving the San Francisco-based company additional capital to expand its personal AI agent for everyday tasks.
Founded by Noah Shinn, Instinct is building an AI agent designed to handle personal tasks from start to finish rather than simply provide information or recommendations. The company remains in early access but is developing the product around text and phone interactions, with the agent using its own computer and phone capabilities to complete actions on a user’s behalf.
Current use cases include planning trips, ordering groceries, canceling subscriptions, coordinating schedules, making reservations, handling service-provider issues, and other tasks that ordinarily require users to navigate multiple websites, apps, phone calls, or customer service systems.
The company has recently introduced several capabilities intended to broaden the types of tasks the agent can handle.
Instinct Concierge is a white-glove service focused on situations that may require more complex interactions or phone calls. Examples include securing reservations at restaurants that do not offer online booking, joining a dentist’s cancellation list, arranging high-end services, and resolving billing issues.
Another feature, the Trusted Person Network, allows individual Instinct agents to communicate directly with one another through the company’s Instinct-to-Instinct protocol.
This capability is designed to help users coordinate plans without manually exchanging information. For example, one person’s Instinct agent can communicate with another user’s agent to coordinate schedules or other arrangements on their behalf.
The system also supports direct sharing of files between agents, including PDFs, images, and spreadsheets.
Instinct has additionally introduced location-aware features through iMessage. When a user shares their location, the system can recognize when they have arrived somewhere and provide suggestions based on previously established preferences or answer questions related to that location.
The company is also investing in privacy and reliability as its software gains the ability to take actions autonomously.
Instinct said its architecture includes isolated sandboxes, short-lived local credentials, and identity-signed tool execution. These safeguards are intended to limit the potential exposure associated with giving an AI system access to online services and user accounts.
Another component, which Instinct describes as an active detective system, is designed to identify subtle hallucinations while the agent is forming responses and prevent those errors from reaching the user or triggering an action.
The company’s broader objective is to build an AI system capable of understanding what it describes as the deeply personal nuances of everyday life.
That approach places Instinct within a growing category of agentic AI companies developing software capable of executing tasks rather than simply responding to prompts.
The funding from Sequoia, Benchmark, and Coatue gives the company additional resources to expand access, improve the underlying product, and develop additional capabilities as consumer AI shifts toward agents that can interact directly with digital services.
Unlike conventional digital assistants that primarily answer questions or execute relatively simple commands, Instinct is designed around completing multi-step workflows.
A user can ask the system to accomplish an outcome, and the agent can determine how to interact with the necessary websites, businesses, or services to complete the request.
That model could eventually allow personal AI agents to act as an interface between users and a broad range of consumer services.
Instinct’s Trusted Person Network also points toward a model where agents increasingly communicate with other agents on behalf of their users, potentially reducing some of the manual coordination involved in planning activities, sharing information, or arranging services.
The company has not disclosed broader financial or user metrics in the announcement and remains in early access. It is currently directing prospective users to register for updates regarding expanded availability.
With the latest Series C, Instinct is positioning itself around the idea that personal AI will increasingly move beyond conversation and toward software that can independently carry out everyday tasks while preserving user control and security.
KEY QUOTE:
“We’re building Instinct to be the best personal agent that can handle the deeply personal nuances of everyday life. This funding helps us bring Instinct to more people and continue building the future of personal AI. It’s an exciting, creative time, and we’re just getting started.”
Noah Shinn, Founder Of Instinct
