070 - What Is Instinct AI?

What if your AI assistant stopped telling you how to do something and just did it? This episode looks at Instinct, an AI personal assistant operated by a company called Spear Street Technology, and why it has been getting so much attention this month. Instinct is built to take actions instead of only giving instructions. Users text or call it, and it connects to parts of their digital life, including email, messaging, their screen, audio, location, and other applications and devices. The company says Instinct is trained to use a phone and a computer the way a person does, so it doesn't need a separate software integration for every task. That is different from a normal chatbot, which can suggest options but leaves the clicking to the user. The episode walks through what that looks like in practice: asking Instinct to find and book a flight, buy groceries, cancel a subscription, or have its expanding concierge service call a business directly. Reuters reports Instinct users doing exactly these kinds of tasks. It also covers why the company is suddenly in the news: on September 28, Instinct said it raised one billion dollars in a new funding round, reaching a reported valuation of ten billion dollars, up from a two point five billion dollar valuation reported just a month earlier. The episode is direct about the tradeoff behind that growth. For Instinct to book a trip, manage an inbox, or make a purchase, it needs access to personal accounts and information, which raises the stakes when something goes wrong. Instinct has faced scrutiny over privacy and security during its early rollout, and the company says it is improving protections such as isolated sandboxes and short-lived credentials, along with systems to catch subtle errors in agent responses before they reach a user or trigger an action. The takeaway: judging an agent means asking not just how smart it is, but what it can access, change, and get wrong. Sources & References Instinct: Official site — https://instinct.com/ Reuters: AI agent firm Instinct raises $1 billion in latest funding round — https://www.reuters.com/technology/ai-agent-firm-instinct-raises-1-billion-latest-funding-round-2026-09-28/ TechCrunch: Instinct's powerful AI assistant is raising privacy and security concerns — https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/24/instincts-powerful-ai-assistant-is-raising-privacy-and-security-concerns/ Wired: I Think I Found an AI Agent Worth the Risk — https://www.wired.com/story/i-finally-found-an-ai-agent-worth-the-risk Business Insider: This AI assistant bought me whey protein and booked a cabin for my birthday — https://www.businessinsider.com/instinct-is-the-ai-assistant-silicon-valley-cant-stop-talking-in-2026-9 Voice narration is AI-generated.