Instinct founder says over 50% of transactions are travel-related

Almost every AI tool’s demo shows a user sparring with the assistant to book travel, and it appears to be the most frequent use case in practice too. The viral Instinct agent is no different: more than 50% of transactions on the platform are for travel, Shinn said in a recent podcast interview with investor Patrick O’Shaughnessy. He also said the invite-only platform is approaching a billion dollars in annual transactions, though he didn’t specify the calculation behind that figure.

“People who are not on Instinct use travel agencies (or sites) to book hotels or flights. What’s the benefit of that interface? They properly unify different hotel chains, airlines, and services, and present them in a nice way for users, who have the option to check out immediately,” Shinn said. He argued Instinct offers a better experience for a certain kind of request — one where a user says they need to be in a city urgently and wants the agent to sort it out.

Shinn said the platform is growing 10% day-by-day, with transaction volume increasing at a similar rate.

He also touched on restaurant reservations, describing most restaurants’ systems as first-come-first-served, which he said doesn’t account for a customer’s special occasion. He said an agent can check restaurant sites every five seconds and inform a user about available slots, and suggested the company wants to reinvent reservations to give users preferential treatment — prioritizing people with a significant occasion over regulars who book a table nightly.

Some observers have pointed out that agents could lie about anniversaries and special occasions just to secure a table, and that some restaurants prefer local, repeat patrons because they bring more consistent business to the venue.

Instinct recently raised $1 billion in Series C funding, announced Monday at a $10 billion valuation, from Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital, and Coatue. The 14-member startup is competing with Meta’s Muse and Khosla-backed Wajo in the personal agent space.

Why it matters

A 14-person startup commanding a $10 billion valuation on largely travel-driven usage suggests investors are pricing AI booking agents as a wedge into the broader consumer-transactions market, not just a travel-specific tool.