I sit down with Remy to go through Instinct, the new invite-only personal agent that runs inside iMessage. Remy shares his raw chat history on screen: a haircut booking in Copenhagen, a restaurant reservation, a Bali visa on arrival, and an Emirates Skywards sign-up. We cover the parts that impress us, the points where the agent hits a wall, and the privacy questions that stay open. By the end of this episode you understand what Instinct does today, and you get fresh ideas for personal agents in general.
Timestamps
00:00 – Intro
02:08 – Instinct Pros
11:18 – Instinct Cons
13:16 – Simple Onboarding
15:19 – Tools and Connectors
17:43 – Example 1: Booking a Haircut in Copenhagen
20:24 – Example 2: Restaurant Booking and Calendar Entry
23:03 – Example 3: Bali Visa on Arrival and Emirates Skywards
26:00 – Closing Thoughts
Key Points
• Instinct hides the agent complexity behind a phone number and iMessage, so a first-time user starts in seconds.
• Remy gets it to book a haircut, hold a restaurant table, file a Bali visa on arrival, and open an Emirates Skywards account.
• A spend-limited virtual card keeps the blast radius small when the agent pays for things.
• The agent stalls when a task needs a phone app or an Indonesian checkout page.
• Users report that Instinct keeps copies of email after they disconnect Google, so treat privacy as an open risk.
• The trusted person network lets one Instinct talk to another, which builds network effects into the agentic era.
Numbered Section Summaries
1. The Invite-Only Launch
Remy first sees Instinct on X, where large AI accounts talk about it. The site shows a wait list, so he grabs an invite code from a public tweet. Scarcity drives the curiosity, and Remy reads the rollout as a marketing play as much as a compute limit.
2. Onboarding Built for the Mass Market
Remy signs in with a phone number and lands straight in iMessage. The agent opens with photo examples: flight bookings, check-ins, smoothie orders, subscription cancellations. Remy teaches founders AI for a living, so he values a flow that skips MCPs, CLIs, and markdown files.
3. The Workspace, the Connectors, and the Vault
A simple web workspace sits beside the chat. It holds contact methods, connectors for email, Slack and Granola, and a vault for logins, cards, and addresses. Remy connects his email accounts and stays impressed by how much context Instinct pulls about him.
4. Real Tasks: Haircut, Restaurant, Visa
Remy asks for salons in Copenhagen. Instinct researches spots, pulls reviews, sends photos, emails the salon, and confirms the booking hours later. It then holds a table at Bistro Central, files the Bali visa on arrival and the arrival card, and opens an Emirates Skywards account with a saved password.
5. Human Touches: Reactions, Memory, and Game Pigeon
Instinct reacts to messages, reads a thumbs-up as approval, and uses loud effects and confetti. It recalls the monitor from an earlier chat and adds it to the visa arrival card. It even plays a round of Game Pigeon Cup Pong, which surprises us both.
6. Network Effects, Privacy, and the Ten-Billion Question
The founder Noah announces a trusted person network, so one Instinct can talk to another. I compare the invite rollout to Clubhouse in 2020, which raised at $4vbillion. Meanwhile Claire Vo and Peter Yang report that Instinct keeps copies of their email after they disconnect Google, and the terms raise the same flag.
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