Instinct's new product recommendations are giving some users the ick

Instinct, the buzzy AI agent startup, began pushing product suggestions to users overnight as part of a new feature called Instinct Selections, curating personalized lists in areas like dining, travel, and shopping. Founder Noah Shinn announced the feature Tuesday, explaining that the idea is to partner with “local chefs, designers, architects, travel guides,” and others to bring “human taste” to the product — pairing what the AI can already suggest from its training data with human-curated picks. Instinct didn’t share who, specifically, those human partners are.

“The next time you’re looking for a restaurant, Instinct can pull from a list handpicked by chefs who know the hidden gems in your area,” Shinn wrote on X, adding that the assistant can also draw on local guides for trail recommendations and independent designers for home decor matched to a user’s style, space, and budget. “Our goal is to deliver world-class recommendations that are differentiated in quality from what you might find on the internet, and from what other chatbots produce,” he said.

The initial reaction hasn’t been fully positive. “I didn’t need to buy carry-on luggage, sunglasses, or a brim hat. This feels so disappointing. At least make me a personalized shopping list of things I actually need!!” wrote Shruti Gandhi, a general partner at AI-focused investing firm Array VC. Entrepreneur Andrew Yeung confirmed on X that he also received unrequested product recommendations, which he found off-putting, and Chat Joglekar, founder of a business-buying marketplace, described his “first ‘ewwww’ moment with an AI assistant” when Instinct suggested products based on his email and upcoming trips.

Making curated suggestions useful requires ensuring they’re things users are actually asking for, or that at least fit naturally into the conversation — otherwise the assistant reads as advertising rather than help. If the recommendations keep arriving at random, as Instinct’s have, they need to be highly personalized and excellent to avoid feeling like spam, particularly as Instinct competes with agents from bigger companies like Meta and OpenAI that don’t push product suggestions this way. Instinct didn’t share whether it’s currently monetizing the recommendations, though the feature looks suited to an advertising, commerce, or affiliate arrangement; TechCrunch has asked the company for further comment.

The rollout came shortly after Instinct confirmed its most recent financing, a $1 billion Series C round valuing the company at $10 billion. The company hasn’t disclosed how many people use the product, a figure that would help justify that valuation, but in a recent podcast with investor Patrick O’Shaughnessy, Shinn said the platform is approaching a billion dollars in annual transactions, more than 50% of them travel-related.

Why it matters

Instinct’s stumble is an early test of how much latitude users will give an AI agent that moves from answering questions to pushing purchases — a tension every consumer AI company chasing commerce revenue will have to navigate.