Viral AI assistant Instinct gets its own email address

Instinct, the buzzy AI assistant now valued at $2.5 billion, is rolling out a new feature that lets it do more on users’ behalf: giving everyone an Instinct email address. Founder Noah Shinn said Tuesday the addresses let the agent create and run its own accounts without cluttering users’ inboxes, handling sign-ups and account management for tasks that require email — creating accounts on various services, contacting businesses, and following up on things that need attention.

“For example, Instinct can use its own email to contact a restaurant about a special request, ask a business about availability, or sign up for a service it needs to complete your task,” Shinn wrote on X. The feature could make Instinct’s experience more seamless, since users won’t have to intervene to log in or hand over credentials — Instinct partnered with 1Password last week for that purpose. For businesses, though, having an AI manage the account adds a layer of obscurity about who they’re actually dealing with, though some customers may see that as a perk given how often they’re asked to hand over emails and phone numbers for simple tasks.

Instinct has reserved some addresses for its earliest users, and others can claim theirs at mail.instinct.com. Shinn said users can also forward emails to Instinct when it needs information to complete a task — such as forwarding an order confirmation so Instinct can contact support, request a return or replacement, and come back with a printable label. The email can be added to group threads so Instinct tracks the information exchanged, or fed a long thread to summarize what decisions still need to be made or what’s due when. The assistant checks back in with users when it needs their input, but otherwise acts autonomously.

The feature follows a string of recent updates: the 1Password partnership for logins, a new location-sharing feature that lets Instinct find nearby businesses or map routes, and an August partnership with Stripe that lets the agent book trips, classes, and appointments and make purchases.

Why it matters

By giving an AI agent its own persistent identity — an email address it can act through — Instinct is testing how much autonomy users will hand over before “who am I actually talking to” becomes a real problem for businesses.