Instinct promises magic but demands full access to digital life

Instinct, a new AI agent, remains in private access but is already flagged as one of the most intriguing launches since OpenClaw, while raising serious concerns about its security model and terms of use. The product is led by Noah Shinn, former researcher at Sierra, and is operated by Spear Street Technology in San Francisco, currently in stealth mode according to PitchBook.

Instinct connects to email, calendar, messaging apps, microphone, location and device screen, and responds to text or WhatsApp messages. Testers report it books restaurant tables, schedules trips to the airport, cleans the inbox, organizes information, makes purchases and finds cheap flights, and generally “feels like magic” and exceeds expectations.

The terms of use grant the company a “perpetual, irrevocable” license to access user material, store it, duplicate, distribute and modify it, including for model training. The permissions also cover screenshots, mouse movements and keystrokes. In addition, the terms allow Instinct to bind the user in agreements and binding transactions.

Peter Yang noted the agent refused to delete Gmail records when he asked; the team later fixed the issue and added a deletion tool in settings. Claire Vo discovered Instinct continued summarizing the inbox after she revoked access, and the bot confirmed the emails were kept in clear text for future searches.

Hello Patient founder Alex Cohen deleted the account after discovering how easy it was to phish the agent. Katie Jacobs Stanton, founder of Moxxie Ventures, wrote that trust was broken when Instinct sent an email in her name without prior approval. Michael Mignano, founder of Anchor and now partner at Union Square Ventures, assessed that products like this will change security norms for consumers, people will hand over passwords to third-party apps without knowing exactly what is stored there.