Instinct

Instinct

2026-09-16 02:07:58

Instinct said to be in talks for $1 billion funding round at roughly $10 billion valuation

Instinct, a startup developing a personal AI assistant, is in talks to raise $1 billion at a valuation of about $10 billion, according to The Information, citing people familiar with the matter. The report said Sequoia Capital and Benchmark are discussing leading the round. The financing has not been finalized, and both the terms and the lead investor could still change. Earlier reporting said the company was seeking fresh capital as its invite-only AI agent service faced capacity constraints while expanding its reach. Its user base has grown to more than 100,000. PitchBook data shows the startup, identified as Spear Street Technology, raised $250 million less than a month ago at a $2.25 billion pre-money valuation. The company has raised a total of $350 million from investors to date.

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AI assistants

2026-09-15 04:14:41

Assistant Benchmark launches real-world leaderboard for personal AI agents, with Muse on top for now

Assistant Benchmark, an independent evaluation project, has started comparing personal AI assistants through real-world tasks rather than abstract benchmarks. The test setup asks agents to complete practical assignments such as booking hotels, choosing restaurants, shopping, replying to emails, and connecting third-party services. Scores are based on whether those tasks are actually completed, and each scoring category is tied to a public fixed task that must include a real execution record before a score is awarded. At the current stage, Muse ranks first with an average score of 9.1 across seven completed categories. Instinct has been tested across 11 categories and holds an average of 8.4, while Grok Bot has completed seven categories with an average of 7.3. Muse posted perfect 10-point results in shopping, email, and third-party app connection tasks. The benchmark should be read as a live, evolving experience board rather than a final ranking. Muse’s 9.1 only reflects the average from seven tested categories, not a full result, and each category is still being measured with only one fixed task for now. As more follow-up testing is added, both the scores and the ranking may change.

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Instinct

2026-09-11 01:24:39

Instinct weighs another $1 billion raise as compute strain and competition build

Personal AI assistant Instinct is considering a new $1 billion fundraising round shortly after closing a $250 million financing, bringing its total funding to $350 million. The new round is still at an early stage and may not happen. In recent weeks, the company has repeatedly warned users that its service was running at full capacity and that responses could slow down. If Instinct secures the full amount, existing investors expect the valuation would need to reach at least about $10 billion to keep dilution for current shareholders within 10%. The company currently relies on rented servers and makes heavy use of open-source models. Founder Noah Shinn has also told potential investors that Instinct hopes to eventually buy its own chips and even operate data centers to lower long-term compute costs. Competition has intensified as well. Meta recently launched Muse, a free personal agent that can also shop for users, book flights and handle everyday tasks. In early community comparisons, several testers said Muse was noticeably faster than Instinct.

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Techub

2026-09-09 15:20:04

Techub page provides no report details on Instinct email feature

The input identifies a Techub item titled "AI assistant Instinct launches its own email address and can handle emails and accounts for users," but the page content provided does not include any report body supporting that claim. Instead, the visible text consists of copyright and violation reporting instructions, contact information, app download guidance, and a general disclaimer stating that the site’s information is for reference only and is not guaranteed to be accurate, valid, timely, or complete. Based on the supplied material, the only verifiable facts are the source outlet, the category label, the URL, and the published timestamp included in the input. Because no factual body text about Instinct, an email product, account handling, launch details, people, companies, timing, or product mechanics appears in the provided content, no additional reporting can be added without introducing unsupported information. This rewrite therefore stays limited to the verifiable record in the input.

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BlockBeats

2026-08-30 07:16:34

Reflexion Co-Author Says Instinct’s Edge May Be Its Handling of Long-Term User State

Ashwin Gopinath, a former MIT professor and co-author of Reflexion, says the fast-rising personal agent Instinct may stand out not because it executes tasks better than rivals or stores ordinary long-term memory, but because it appears to maintain a user’s long-term state over time. He said the view comes from hands-on use, not internal access. In his assessment, Instinct does not look dramatically stronger than Hermes or OpenClaw on raw task execution. What feels different is that the agent seems to understand the user better the longer it is used, without becoming bogged down by an ever-growing history of past interactions. Gopinath thinks the key may be that Instinct does not simply archive every chat and action log and then retrieve them with vector search or a knowledge graph. Instead, it keeps an evolving picture of what still matters: which preferences remain valid, which facts have changed, which tasks are unfinished, and whether the next move should be to wait, follow up, or act. He describes the process as “memory compilation,” where useful signals are filtered out of messy life records and compressed into a continuously updated state. For long-running agents, he argues, the hard problem is no longer just remembering more, but knowing what should persist, what should expire, and what change should trigger action.

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AI Assistant

2026-08-27 00:57:43

AI assistant startup Instinct raises $250 million in Series B round

AI assistant startup Instinct has raised $250 million in a Series B funding round led jointly by Index Ventures and Benchmark, according to ChainCatcher. After the raise, the company’s total funding has reached $350 million, while its valuation has climbed to $2.5 billion. Instinct was launched by Spear Street Technology and is led by 23-year-old founder Noah Shinn. The product is still in private testing. The company says users can connect Instinct to their personal apps and devices, then interact with the AI assistant through text messages and phone calls. The assistant is designed to help with day-to-day tasks including trip planning, shopping, booking activities, and managing subscriptions.

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Instinct

2026-08-27 00:28:32

AI startup Instinct raises $350 million at a $2.5 billion valuation

Instinct, an AI startup founded just one year ago, has completed a $350 million funding round at a $2.5 billion valuation, according to Techub, citing TechCrunch. The company has drawn significant attention and a wave of capital in a short period of time. At the same time, the rapid rise has also sparked concerns over privacy. The report did not provide additional details on investors or transaction terms in the brief.

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