Key facts
- Noah Shinn said nearly 40% of Instinct users connect personal credit cards within three weeks of use.
- Shinn said Instinct tracks how quickly users allow purchases above $500 or trips costing several thousand dollars.
- Instinct raised $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation in September 2026, the company announced.
- Shinn said Instinct's usefulness depends on accumulating users' private emails, calendars, conversations and preferences.
- Meta disclosed that more than a quarter of Muse users had made purchases through the agent, with an average order above $200.
Noah Shinn, the 23-year-old founder of the AI personal assistant Instinct, said on November 3 that nearly 40% of the service's users connect their personal credit cards within three weeks of using it. He spoke at Fireworks AI's Forge conference in San Francisco, according to Business Insider, which reported the remarks.
"That to me is a real sign of trust," Shinn said, describing the figure as a measure of how quickly people are learning to trust AI agents with their money and sensitive personal information. Shinn said Instinct measures trust partly by tracking how quickly users allow it to make expensive purchases, including transactions exceeding $500 or trips costing several thousand dollars.
Instinct is among a wave of AI agents that go beyond answering questions to booking flights, buying groceries, managing calendars and canceling subscriptions. The more useful these assistants become, the more access they need to people's emails, calendars, payment information and personal preferences. Shinn said Instinct's usefulness depends on accumulating information about its users, including private emails, calendars, conversations and preferences, so it can remember details without being repeatedly prompted. "It's a massive amount of data," he said.
Competition in personal AI agents is growing. Meta launched Muse, OpenAI introduced Dots, and Anthropic unveiled Claude Duet, a proactive assistant designed to handle tasks on users' behalf. Meta disclosed that more than a quarter of Muse users had made purchases through the agent, with an average order exceeding $200.
Instinct announced in September that it raised $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation. At Forge, Shinn also discussed plans for real-time voice interactions and dynamically changing interfaces, and predicted that most people with internet access worldwide would have an AI operator like Instinct in the coming years.