Instinct

On October 5, 2026, Instinct began letting early access users add it to group chats, where a separate group Instinct works for everyone in the thread, even friends who have not joined Instinct. Founder Noah Shinn said your personal Instinct asks before it connects to a group's agent, the group agent cannot access your personal accounts, and your personal agent always asks before sharing information or taking any action. It reaches all users "soon," and you can ask your Instinct to put you on the list.

Instinct, the personal AI assistant made by Spear Street Technology, raised a $1 billion Series C on September 28, 2026, valuing the company at $10 billion. Sequoia Capital, Benchmark, and Coatue took part in the round. This comes about a month after Instinct's previous round, which valued the company at $2.5 billion. A September 29 TechCrunch report says founder Noah Shinn told the Invest Like the Best podcast that Instinct is nearing $1 billion in annual transaction volume, more than half of it travel, and growing about 10% a day. He did not say how that figure is calculated. The company still has not shared revenue, user counts, or a timeline for opening up beyond its current invite-only waitlist.

Instinct users are again reporting slower responses and delayed tasks, weeks after an August slowdown. One user told Business Insider that reminders sometimes arrive late, "like it went home for the night." Neither Noah Shinn nor Instinct had commented on this new slowdown as of the report; back in August, Shinn had said on X that the team was working to keep up with "exploding usage" and expected response times to improve within about 12 hours. Unlike Meta, which owns its own data centers, Instinct has to rent computing power, which experts say makes it harder to scale quickly.

A user posted screenshots on September 21, 2026 showing Instinct describing someone else's financial document, including a middle name and address that weren't his, and claiming a photo he never sent had "crossed into" his chat. Founder Noah Shinn responded that this was a hallucination, not a data leak: he said the AI made up a name and then built a confident but false explanation around it, and that no user data was shared and no account boundary was crossed. Other Instinct users have since described similar mix-ups over the same few days. Neither side has published evidence that settles which explanation is correct.

CNN reported that Instinct, a personal AI assistant, pinged the reservation site Resy hundreds of times an hour while trying to book a hard-to-get table for a New York user. Resy's system flagged this as bot abuse and banned the user's account. Resy said it does not allow outside bots or agents to access its platform without approval. The user got his account back afterward, but said he won't try that again.

Instinct stopped responding for a number of users starting the night of September 21 into September 22, 2026. Messages showed as read with no reply, and reminders and other time-sensitive tasks didn't fire. Instinct is invite-only and has no public status page, so affected users turned to founder Noah Shinn's replies on X for updates. Neither Shinn nor Instinct had officially commented on the outage at the time of reporting.

On September 16, 2026, Instinct founder Noah Shinn introduced Instinct Concierge, a service that lets Instinct place phone calls for high-touch requests: booking a restaurant that doesn't take online reservations, getting on a dentist's cancellation list, or sorting out a cable bill. You ask for something like this over text, and Instinct handles the call. Shinn said the rollout is starting slowly with Instinct's early access group today, with wider access coming soon. TechCrunch reported the next day that rival Meta's Muse opened a similar outbound-calling beta to US businesses.

The Information reported on September 15, 2026 that Instinct's maker, Spear Street Technology, is in talks to raise $1 billion at a valuation of about $10 billion. That is roughly four times the $2.5 billion valuation it reached just three weeks earlier. Sequoia Capital and Benchmark are reportedly in talks to lead the round. Instinct's user base has passed 100,000, and demand has reportedly outgrown its computing capacity, slowing down replies. Nothing is final yet: this is a funding target, not a signed deal.

Techmeme reported on September 10, 2026, citing The Information, that Instinct is looking to raise $1 billion in new funding. This comes about two weeks after its $250 million Series B, and the company is reportedly seeking the money for more computing power amid capacity constraints. Nothing is confirmed as closed yet: this is a fundraising target, not an announced round.

On September 8, 2026, Instinct founder Noah Shinn announced that every Instinct assistant now gets its own dedicated email address, claimable at mail.instinct.com. Early users get first pick of a preferred handle. Shinn said this is the first step toward letting Instinct own and run its own accounts: since most everyday tasks, like creating accounts, confirming bookings, or contacting a business, run through email, a separate agent inbox lets Instinct send and receive that mail without cluttering your personal one.

On September 4, 2026, Instinct announced a partnership with 1Password to let the agent get your account logins through 1Password's vault instead of only through Instinct's own built-in Vault. Instinct CEO Noah Shinn said 32% of Instinct users already share credentials through that in-house Vault, letting the agent log into loyalty programs, streaming and software accounts, restaurant and fitness bookings, healthcare portals, and payroll and benefits sites. The integration is still being built and rolled out, it is not live yet.

Instinct raised $250 million in a new funding round led by Index Ventures and Benchmark. That brings its total funding to $350 million and values the company at $2.5 billion, about five times higher than just a few weeks ago. It's still invite-only.