Instinct AI is For Real. What You Need to Know.
Hosts Greg and Remy review Instinct AI, an invite-only personal agent app raising at a $10 billion valuation, demonstrating its capabilities for booking flights, restaurants, obtaining visas, and other personal tasks. They highlight its impressive simplicity, human-like communication style, and network effects through its trusted agent connectivity, while flagging privacy and data retention concerns.
Summary
In this episode, AI enthusiasts Greg and Remy provide an in-depth walkthrough of Instinct AI, a secretive invite-only personal agent application. They begin by explaining Instinct's market positioning and rumored $10 billion valuation, then demonstrate the app's actual capabilities through multiple real-world use cases.
Remy showcases what Instinct does exceptionally well: it maintains appropriate dialogue brevity without verbosity, effectively uses Apple iMessage native features (confetti reactions, loud messages, voice notes), and impressively can even play Game Pigeon games sent through iMessage. The app demonstrates strong memory capabilities, pulling from previous conversations to inform current tasks, and shows proactive productivity features like sending reminders when order cutoffs are approaching.
A major strength is its accessibility as a simplified agent product for mainstream consumers. Unlike OpenClaw or Hermes agents which have grown increasingly complex to serve power users, Instinct bridges this gap by providing agent functionality without technical barriers like VPS setup, Docker, or CLI knowledge. Remy notes this is critical for mass adoption, comparing it to how his mother could never set up Hermes herself despite being intelligent in other domains.
The product uses several clever go-to-market strategies: an invite-only approach that creates scarcity and viral interest (compared to Clubhouse's 2020 strategy), fast computer use capabilities, and a unique trusted agent network feature enabling Instinct-to-Instinct communication for network effects. Each Instinct gets its own email address to handle PA tasks separately from user inboxes.
Remy demonstrates extensive use cases including booking flights and hotels, finding hairstylists in Copenhagen, making restaurant reservations, signing up for airline loyalty programs, and notably, obtaining an Indonesian visa on arrival with just a few messages and passport photos. The onboarding process is praised for being unusually simple and clear.
However, significant concerns emerge around privacy and data retention. Users report that Instinct continues indexing emails even after disconnecting Google access, and terms of conditions contain troubling language about retaining private data. Greg and Remy acknowledge these concerns but weigh them against the genuine time savings and convenience the product provides.
The hosts conclude that Instinct fills a specific niche perfectly: personal assistant AI tasks for non-technical consumers, distinct from business, coding, or work-related tasks where OpenClaw and Claude remain preferable. They recommend it as an excellent tool to introduce non-technical people to agent capabilities.
About this episode
I sit down with Remy to go through Instinct, the new invite-only personal agent that runs inside iMessage. Remy shares his raw chat history on screen: a haircut booking in Copenhagen, a restaurant reservation, a Bali visa on arrival, and an Emirates Skywards sign-up. We cover the parts that impress us, the points where the agent hits a wall, and the privacy questions that stay open. By the end of this episode you understand what Instinct does today, and you get fresh ideas for personal agents in general. Timestamps 00:00 – Intro 02:08 – Instinct Pros 11:18 – Instinct Cons 13:16 – Simple Onboarding 15:19 – Tools and Connectors 17:43 – Example 1: Booking a Haircut in Copenhagen 20:24 – Example 2: Restaurant Booking and Calendar Entry 23:03 – Example 3: Bali Visa on Arrival and Emirates Skywards 26:00 – Closing Thoughts Key Points • Instinct hides the agent complexity behind a phone number and iMessage, so a first-time user starts in seconds. • Remy gets it to book a haircut, hold a restaurant table, file a Bali visa on arrival, and open an Emirates Skywards account. • A spend-limited virtual card keeps the blast radius small when the agent pays for things. • The agent stalls when a task needs a phone app or an Indonesian checkout page. • Users report that Instinct keeps copies of email after they disconnect Google, so treat privacy as an open risk. • The trusted person network lets one Instinct talk to another, which builds network effects into the agentic era. Numbered Section Summaries 1. The Invite-Only Launch Remy first sees Instinct on X, where large AI accounts talk about it. The site shows a wait list, so he grabs an invite code from a public tweet. Scarcity drives the curiosity, and Remy reads the rollout as a marketing play as much as a compute limit. 2. Onboarding Built for the Mass Market Remy signs in with a phone number and lands straight in iMessage. The agent opens with photo examples: flight bookings, check-ins, smoothie orders, subscription cancellations. Remy teaches founders AI for a living, so he values a flow that skips MCPs, CLIs, and markdown files. 3. The Workspace, the Connectors, and the Vault A simple web workspace sits beside the chat. It holds contact methods, connectors for email, Slack and Granola, and a vault for logins, cards, and addresses. Remy connects his email accounts and stays impressed by how much context Instinct pulls about him. 4. Real Tasks: Haircut, Restaurant, Visa Remy asks for salons in Copenhagen. Instinct researches spots, pulls reviews, sends photos, emails the salon, and confirms the booking hours later. It then holds a table at Bistro Central, files the Bali visa on arrival and the arrival card, and opens an Emirates Skywards account with a saved password. 5. Human Touches: Reactions, Memory, and Game Pigeon Instinct reacts to messages, reads a thumbs-up as approval, and uses loud effects and confetti. It recalls the monitor from an earlier chat and adds it to the visa arrival card. It even plays a round of Game Pigeon Cup Pong, which surprises us both. 6. Network Effects, Privacy, and the Ten-Billion Question The founder Noah announces a trusted person network, so one Instinct can talk to another. I compare the invite rollout to Clubhouse in 2020, which raised at $4vbillion. Meanwhile Claire Vo and Peter Yang report that Instinct keeps copies of their email after they disconnect Google, and the terms raise the same flag. The #1 tool to find startup ideas/trends - https://www.ideabrowser.com LCA helps Fortune 500s and fast-growing startups build their future - from Warner Music to Fortnite to Dropbox. We turn 'what if' into reality with AI, apps, and next-gen products https://latecheckout.agency/ FIND ME ON SOCIAL X/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenberg Instagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/ FIND REMY ON SOCIAL X: https://x.com/remy_gaskell Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@aiwithremy AI with Remy: https://www.aiwithremy.com/
Key Insights
- Instinct successfully simplifies agent technology for mainstream consumers by removing technical barriers like VPS setup and Docker configuration that made products like Hermes inaccessible to non-technical users like Remy's mother.
- The invite-only rollout strategy deliberately creates scarcity and viral interest, preventing the product from being overlooked in a crowded market of agent announcements on social media platforms.
- Instinct's trusted agent network enabling Instinct-to-Instinct communication creates network effects for the agentic era by allowing agents to coordinate with each other, similar to how messaging networks create value through connectivity.
- The product maintains human-like communication by knowing when to react with emoji rather than always replying verbosely, avoiding the word vomit problem that plagues many AI models.
- Privacy concerns exist where Instinct continues indexing and retaining email data even after users disconnect their Google accounts, raising questions about data control in the terms of service.
Topics
Transcript
[0:00] Yeah, you've probably heard of Instinct AI by now. You know, the invite only personal agent app that's raising money at a rumored $10 billion. Well, what does it look like inside? And what are some use cases? And what are some crazy things that you can do with it? Like, you know, saving money on your phone bills or getting a visa approved in a foreign country with only three messages. Well, today me and my friend Remy are going to show you the inside of Instinct AI, the secretive inviteonly [music] app. We're going to show you how [0:31] it works, where it shines, and where it could use a little bit of help. The TLDDR is…
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