Instinct was the hottest AI agent – ​​can it survive Muse?

Before there were cute little guys, there was Instinct.

In August, the startup brought its AI agent to market with an unusual playbook: invitation-only, no marketing, and barely a website. And yet, Instinct has quickly become the hottest thing in AI, garnering praise for its simple text-based interface and its ability to handle tasks like making DMV appointments and sending follow-up emails.

Then Muse arrived, followed shortly after by Dots. The same products, more or less, from two much more powerful companies.

With the sudden arrival of Big Tech players, it seemed doubtful whether the startup’s aggressive launch could keep it ahead of the competition. But in my own tests, Instinct held its own against the other two agents, handling online tasks as well as a robot. And Instinct founder Noah Shinn isn’t fazed by the growing competition.

“AI assistants are all we know,” Shinn tells me over email. While OpenAI and Meta create AI products for a wide range of clients, Shinn believes Instinct’s focus sets it apart. “We focused solely on creating a personal assistant for everyday life that perfectly meets your needs.”

Shinn was an early employee at Sierra – another highly regarded startup with serious Silicon Valley pedigree – before striking out on his own to launch Instinct. The low-key release quickly gained momentum thanks to praise from testers and a massive vote of confidence from investors. The company was valued at $10 billion at the end of September, even after Muse launched. There is no app or monthly subscription fee (yet). You will need either an invitation from a current user or approval from a waitlist. I was approved after just a few hours.

Instinct’s AI assistant can do many of the same things that Muse did for me, and to some extent, OpenAI’s Dots. The kind of life’s administrative tasks, like swimming lesson registrations and appointment confirmations, that pile up with alarming frequency in the home of a preschooler and two adults with full-time jobs. These are more user-friendly versions of agents like Codex and OpenClaw that software developers have been using for the past year.

You chat with them much like a chatbot, but they also have access to a virtual machine and can connect to your personal email and calendar. And while Muse’s teddy bear mascot and Dots’ anthropomorphized blobs seem like obvious attempts to capture a broader consumer audience, Instinct feels distinctly different.

Conversations with Instinct’s agent take place via text, iMessage, WhatsApp or email. There is no such thing as a cute little guy. Don’t pretend he’s sitting at a laptop, typing on a keyboard. Just brief responses, occasional emoji reactions, and way more action than words. It’s as effective as I think we can reasonably expect from an AI agent right now, but the limitations of a robot getting things done in a human world are just as real.

If you want Instinct to connect to a particular website, you’ll get a link to enter the details into a “secure vault” and you can connect it to different services, including your Google Workspace, Slack, and Notion. But otherwise the interface is just your text messages. That’s kind of genius, and it means Instinct is anywhere you can send and receive texts, like CarPlay or on your watch. It’s just quietly nearby, which is either ideal or scary, depending on how you feel about AI agents. I thought it was a bit of both.

Shinn says the lack of a traditional app interface is a crucial part of what he believes sets Instinct apart from the big players. “While AI platforms excel at answering questions and prompts, Instinct seamlessly integrates into people’s lives to turn conversation into action,” he says. “Just like you would text or email your personal assistant, you can do the same with Instinct.”

Instinct didn’t impress me at first. After a few introductory messages, it took my Cincinnati area code as an invitation to send me a link to the Applicantand a set of search results for flights between CVG and SFO. THANKS? I told him I no longer lived in Cincinnati. “Ha,” he said. “Noted – I will keep that in mind from now on.” But after giving it a steady diet of meaty tasks over the past couple of weeks, it’s mostly impressed me, even if I don’t think I’m any closer to reaching some sort of productivity nirvana.

I gave Instinct the somewhat vague task of finding swimming lessons for my son – something I’ve been meaning to do for years but always seem to put off. I asked him to find lessons adapted to his age; he came back with a list of achievable outcomes. I suggested the neighborhood community center, and the company changed course to focus there. I opened a browser and followed to check its suggestions. The proposed times and dates have all been checked – a very low hurdle has been cleared. But one crucial piece of information was missing: The center offers a prerequisite class for children enrolled in preschool classes. I happened to catch this detail, and it highlights a challenge AI agents face: They’re great with a clean data set, but the Internet was created by humans, and often the data sucks. Sometimes, crucial information is hidden in a pop-up window.

Instinct handled a few other tasks well, like emailing my eye doctor’s office to schedule an appointment and filling out the digital paperwork to start an Ikea return. Beyond just filling out some forms for me, it was surprisingly good at handling vague instructions. I had him look it up through my past Ikea purchases, and he figured out what product I meant by “it’s vertical and white and it kind of has branches.” (Tjusig, for those keeping score at home).

On several occasions it surprised me by presenting relevant information that I had not explicitly asked for. I began my request to email the eye doctor by acknowledging that I couldn’t remember the exact name of the practice. Instinct refined it based on my description, and later in the conversation it noted that I had received a 2024 confirmation email from the doctor, just to reassure me that I had sent it to the right place. Additionally, Instinct also reported a potential conflict on my calendar while it was performing another task for me. Filling out forms like a big fancy automatic filling machine is one thing, and AI agents are quickly proving to be very good at it. But correctly identifying relevant information and proactively bringing it to my attention seems to me to be a real step forward towards real help.

Expect to pay for all of this in the future. When asked if Instinct would remain free, Shinn replied: “Instinct is free for invite-only users. Our intention is to keep it as affordable as possible.” Avi Greengart, an analyst at Techsponential, notes that a venture-backed startup like Instinct currently has growth as its primary goal. “The business model is to grow as quickly as possible to establish something worth paying for,” he says, noting that a company like Instinct might consider revenue from its customer base and/or acquisition by a larger company.

OpenAI’s Dots is only available to paid subscribers at the moment, while Meta’s Muse is free. “If you don’t pay for it, then the goods and services you are looking for can be negotiated to gain access to your agent,” Greengart theorizes. He acknowledges that the current economic situation is a bit shaky, as agents are currently largely used by early adopters, but he thinks the old adage is true. “If you don’t pay directly, you pay indirectly,” he says.

That could mean more advertising in the future, according to Greg Ireland, senior director at IDC. “The fact that these agents are very focused on transactions, commerce or purchases makes them a natural fit,” he says. In fact, Instinct has already tried offering “recommended products” to its users. Companies have many incentives to make this advertising acceptable to consumers, but Ireland believes advertising will play a role one way or another. “All roads in the consumer market ultimately lead to advertising,” he says. said.