Imagine texting a contact who then calls the scrapyard, compares pickup costs, drafts the email and negotiates the terms — all while you go about your day. That is the pitch behind Instinct, an AI agent that operates through plain text messages or phone calls, with no app to install and no new hardware to buy. According to its official site, the agent understands your work and acts across your applications and devices, using a phone and a computer much as you would. The concept has gained traction after a journalist described using it to finally deregister a motorcycle he had been putting off for years.
- No app required: Instinct works over SMS or voice call, running on a cloud computer with browser access and the credentials the user connects.
- Human-in-the-loop: The agent asks for approval at important steps and only shares personal data when a third party genuinely needs it.
- Explosive valuation: The US startup reportedly jumped from roughly $50 million in spring to a $10 billion valuation by late September, though access remains invite-only and free.
From recipe requests to real-world bureaucracy
The appeal is not that Instinct answers questions, but that it carries out the heavy lifting of a process from start to finish. Its own examples range from asking for recipe ingredients to booking a train or finding a tennis court for the weekend. The case that made it viral is more mundane and more revealing: a writer asked the agent to deregister his motorcycle. Instinct explained the procedure, proposed taking the bike to a scrapyard that handles the paperwork, found three nearby scrapyards offering home pickup along with their costs, drafted and sent the email, and managed terms, dates and price. Personal data was shared only at the end, because the scrapyard required it. According to the account, the whole process took under ten minutes.
That story illustrates why these agents resonate. They do not solve a difficult problem; they solve a boring one — the kind we postpone for months because it involves calling, comparing and filling out forms. That is where AI delivers tangible value.
What sits behind the curtain — and what it costs you
Instinct is a US startup currently in an invitation-only beta. Access is free but limited, and no pricing or general-availability date has been announced. According to financial press reports, the company went from a valuation of about $50 million (roughly €45 million) in spring to $10 billion (around €8.96 billion) by the end of September. There is no information about availability in Spain.
Instinct is not alone in this race. It fits into a wave of agents that act on your behalf, from Walmart allowing AI agents to shop while Amazon sues over the practice, to Anthropic’s Claude Duet, an agent that monitors your email and acts autonomously.
The more data you give it, the more effectively it resolves things — and the more risk you assume.
That trade-off is the crux. To do all this, the agent needs access to your email, your credentials and, ultimately, your personal data. The sensible rule is the one the original user himself points to: the more data you hand over, the more capable the agent becomes, and the more risk you take on. Before giving an agent the keys to your inbox, it is worth understanding what permissions you are granting an agent that browses and buys on your behalf, and what prompt injection means in practice.
The bigger picture
Instinct represents a broader shift from chatbots that talk to agents that act. The convenience of ten minutes is not free: it is paid for with access, trust and a new attack surface. As these agents move from invite-only betas to mainstream products, the winners will be those that make delegation feel safe as well as effortless. For now, Instinct offers a compelling glimpse of a future where the most tedious items on your to-do list are handled by a text message — provided you are willing to accept the privacy bargain that comes with it.