Viral AI assistant Instinct now has its own email address

Instinct Gets Its Own Email Address

Instinct, the AI assistant now valued at $2.5 billion, is rolling out a new feature that gives every user an Instinct email address. The company's founder, Noah Shinn, announced the update on Tuesday, saying the new email addresses let the agent create and run its own accounts without cluttering up users' inboxes.

What Instinct Email Can Do

The feature allows Instinct to handle account sign-up and management on behalf of users for tasks that require email. According to Shinn, use cases include:

• Creating accounts on various services
• Contacting businesses
• 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.

Benefits and Implications

The feature could make Instinct's user experience more seamless, as users wouldn't have to intervene to log in or provide their credentials. (Instinct partnered with 1Password on the latter last week.)

However, for businesses trying to establish a relationship with their customers, having an AI manage the account would provide a layer of obscurity as to who they're actually dealing with. Customers, however, may see this as a perk, as many are tired of having to turn over their emails and phone numbers just to complete simple tasks or one-offs.

How to Use It

Instinct has reserved some email addresses for its earliest users, and others can claim theirs at mail.instinct.com. Shinn suggested that users could also forward emails to Instinct when it needs certain information to complete a task. For example:

1. A user could forward their order confirmation to Instinct's email address to handle a product return.
2. Instinct could then contact support, provide the order details, and ask whether they wanted a return or replacement.
3. Instinct would come back with the return label to print.

Instinct's email can also be added to group threads so it can keep track of the information exchanged, or it can be sent a long thread that the user needs to work with - for instance, by asking what decisions still need to be made, which tasks are due when, or other questions. The bot will check back in with the user when it requires their input, but otherwise will act autonomously.

Recent Updates

The email feature is one of several recent updates aimed at improving Instinct's capabilities:

• 1Password partnership - to help enable logins to users' existing accounts.
• Location-sharing feature - lets Instinct understand where the user is currently, so it can help them find nearby businesses, restaurants, or map routes and itineraries. Users can also ask questions about their location history, like where they parked or what restaurant they tried last month.
• Stripe partnership (August) - offers a more seamless payment experience, letting the agent book trips, classes, and appointments, and make purchases.