Instinct is a San Francisco personal AI agent startup founded by Noah Shinn (operating company Spear Street Technology, Inc.). You text or call it, and it uses its own phone and computer to finish everyday tasks end to end — planning a road trip, ordering groceries, cancelling forgotten subscriptions, booking a handyman, getting a ride to the airport. On September 28, 2026 it announced a $1 billion Series C from Sequoia Capital, Benchmark and Coatue at a $10 billion valuation, up from $2.5 billion about a month earlier. The product is in invite-only early access.

How much did Instinct raise and who invested?

Instinct raised $1 billion in Series C funding, announced September 28, 2026, led by Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital and Coatue, at a $10 billion valuation. Reports put the previous round a month earlier at a $2.5 billion valuation, so the company quadrupled in value in roughly 30 days. MarketWatch reported the company has only about 14 employees.

Does Instinct train on my data?

By default, yes, with an opt-out. Instinct's privacy policy (revised August 26, 2026) says information collected through use of the service may be used to evaluate, fine-tune and train its models; users can opt out at app.instinct.com/settings on a go-forward basis, though data flagged for safety review may still be used. Data from Google Workspace APIs is not used for training, material in the Vault feature is used only to provide the service, and the company says it does not sell data or share it with registered data brokers. Depending on permissions, the agent can access messages, email, audio, payment details, third-party passwords and health information.

How do I get access to Instinct?

As of September 29, 2026, Instinct is invite-only early access. Sign in at app.instinct.co/login to join the waitlist; the company sends a welcome text when a spot opens. Users must be 18 or older. Pricing after early access has not been published.

Quick Answer

What Is Instinct? The $10B Personal AI Agent (Sep 2026)

Published: September 29, 2026

The short answer

Instinct is a personal AI agent that you text or call and that then goes off with its own phone and computer to finish the job — and on September 28, 2026 it became a $10 billion company after a $1 billion Series C from Sequoia, Benchmark and Coatue. Founded by Noah Shinn and operated by Spear Street Technology, Inc., it is still invite-only, reportedly has around 14 employees, and quadrupled its valuation from $2.5 billion in about a month. It is the purest expression of the “all-in-one agent” wave that also includes Meta Muse, Manus Cue and OpenAI’s leaked always-on “o” agent — the same wave that led Google to retire Gemini Gems in favor of skills.

What it actually does

Instinct’s pitch is that it introduces no new interface. You message or call it the way you would a human assistant. The agent connects to your applications and devices — email, messaging, screen, audio, location — and is trained to operate a phone and a computer the way a person does, so it can:

plan a cross-country road trip and book the pieces;
order the weekly groceries;
cancel subscriptions you forgot about;
follow up on threads you dropped, and proactively call or text you;
arrange a ride to the airport or book a handyman.

Three product additions shipped in the months before the raise:

Feature	What it does
Instinct Concierge	White-glove handling of high-touch cases: calling a restaurant that takes no online reservations, getting on a dentist’s cancellation list, sorting out a cable bill.
Trusted Person Network	An Instinct-to-Instinct protocol so your agent can coordinate plans with other people’s Instincts, including direct file sharing (PDFs, images, spreadsheets).
Location Sharing	Shared over iMessage; the agent notices when you arrive somewhere and makes suggestions or answers questions in context.

On reliability, the company says it runs an “active detective” system that catches subtle hallucinations while the agent is forming a response, removing them before anything is generated or executed. On security it cites isolated sandboxes, short-lived local credentials and identity-signed tool execution “from day one.”

The money

	Detail
Round	Series C, $1 billion
Announced	September 28, 2026
Investors	Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital, Coatue
Valuation	$10 billion (from ~$2.5 billion about a month earlier)
Headcount	~14 (MarketWatch)
Stated use	”Bring useful AI to everyone” — expand access

At roughly $700 million of valuation per employee, Instinct is the most extreme example yet of the 2026 pattern of tiny teams on top of frontier models. Which model powers it is not disclosed. For context: Manus is seeking $500 million at $4 billion, and Meta paid $2 billion for Manus before Beijing unwound the deal.

Data, authority and the fine print

Instinct’s terms and privacy policy (both revised August 26, 2026) are unusually explicit about what an agent with your credentials means:

Agent authority. You appoint the service as your agent to enter agreements and transactions on your behalf; purchases made through an Action are yours, not the company’s. Actions “may not always be reversible.”
Data reach. Depending on granted permissions: connected apps, message and email content, audio, payment information, usernames and passwords for third-party accounts, health-related data.
Training. Collected data may be used to train Instinct’s models; opt out at app.instinct.com/settings (go-forward only; safety-flagged data may still be used). Google Workspace data is excluded from training; Vault material is used only to provide the service.
Injection risk, acknowledged. The policy warns that the agent’s interactions with third parties “may involve misleading instructions intended to influence autonomous agents,” and that autonomous features can produce unintended payments or communications. It asks users to review the agent’s actions.
Age. 18+.

That last point is the honest version of a risk every personal agent carries; the Manus prompt-injection flaw disclosed by Salt Labs on September 24, 2026 is the live example. How to think about it: how to control AI shopping agents and how to give agents credentials without leaking them.

How it compares

Instinct’s differentiator is modality: it phones people and other agents, rather than living in a chat box. Meta Muse (September 8, 2026) is free for most use with $20 and $100 tiers, US-only, distributed through WhatsApp and topped the US App Store; Manus Cue (September 28) gives each agent an email, phone number, wallet and computer and is free in early access with an invite code; OpenAI’s “o” is unreleased. Full table in Instinct vs Manus Cue vs Meta Muse.

How to get in

Join the waitlist at app.instinct.co/login. Access opens in batches with a welcome text. Pricing after early access is unannounced as of September 29, 2026.

Last verified: September 29, 2026.