Instinct AI Assistant Targets $10 Billion Valuation

The new funding would value the company at $10 billion, according to the report, which cited an unnamed source. The startup is seeking new funding as its invitation-only AI agent’s user base has surpassed 100,000.

Spear Street last raised $250 million in August at a $2.25 billion valuation.

Instinct, which lets users send texts to request tasks like responding to other messages or making restaurant reservations, debuted earlier this year to a select group of users, the report said. The functions are similar to free AI assistant Muse, which Meta unveiled Sept. 8.

Instinct has sometimes informed users that it is operating at full capacity and “responses may be slower” as people use it for tasks like negotiating bills and replying to emails, according to the report. CEO Noah Shinn has said he doesn’t want to charge users, indicating the company could seek other sources of revenue, such as advertising.

“I’m thrilled with everything our early users are doing with Instinct,” Shinn wrote in an Aug. 26 post on social platform X. “They’ve told us they’ve planned cross-country road trips, bought weekly groceries and concert tickets, and canceled hundreds of dollars of subscriptions. Someone’s even planning their wedding with Instinct.”

I’m Noah, the founder of Instinct.

Instinct is a personal agent that we’ve been building for the past few months. The interface is simple: there are no new interfaces. You can text or call it. It’s trained to use a phone and a computer in the same way that humans do. Instinct combines simplicity with extreme capability.

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I’m thrilled with everything our early users are doing with Instinct. They’ve told us they’ve planned cross-country road trips, bought weekly groceries and concert tickets, and cancelled hundreds of dollars of subscriptions. Someone’s even planning their wedding with Instinct.

We want to make Instinct the best personal agent for all of you. It’s available in an invite-only beta program while we’re actively bringing up more compute. I’m excited to see what you all do with it.

https://t.co/lVra3kd4TT

— Noah Shinn (@noahrshinn) August 26, 2026

Meanwhile, research from the PYMNTS Intelligence report “The New AI Handshake: Data Shows When Consumers Want Help and When They Want Control” found in May that while consumers turn to AI for writing, search and research, the next growth wave is coalescing around repeatable daily tasks such as meals, shopping, budgeting, setting reminders, household logistics and personal planning.

“For banks, merchants and payments providers, that shift is worth tracking because many of the fastest-growing activities sit close to spending decisions,” the report said. “Discount searches, grocery planning, bill reminders, household budgets and product discovery all touch commerce or financial management. In those use cases, AI is starting to shape how they plan, compare, buy and remember.”

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