Instinct Opens Its AI Agent to Group Chats With Non-Users

Instinct, the personal AI agent startup valued at $10 billion, said its agent can now join group chats with friends who do not have an Instinct account. Founder Noah Shinn, a 23-year-old college dropout, announced the feature on X on October 5 and pitched it for planning travel, snagging event tickets, running fantasy leagues, organizing carpools, and managing who is bringing what to Thanksgiving, TechCrunch reported.

"Making plans with friends usually turns into a frustrating back-and-forth over times and places," Shinn wrote. "With Instinct in the group, you can explore options together, agree on a plan and get it done, all in one thread."

The pitch for a mixed-trust setting is that each user's personal Instinct agent asks permission before connecting with the group's agent, and the group agent is siloed from personal accounts and cannot access them. The personal agent "will always ask the user's permission before sharing information or taking any action," Shinn said. Early access is live via users' personal agents; broader rollout is coming "soon."

The move lands weeks after Instinct closed a $1 billion Series C at a $10 billion valuation from Sequoia Capital, Benchmark and Coatue, roughly 4x the $2.5 billion mark it carried a month earlier. It also sharpens the contrast with Meta's Muse, which does not currently join group chats as an agent, although Meta AI already works inside WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram and Facebook group threads. Our tracker has logged 432 agents stories in the past 90 days, and Muse's own data posture was in our feed yesterday.