AI That Plans Your Life Just Raised $350 Million

A year-old startup called Instinct has become one of the hottest names in AI — and it's about to get much more attention. Founder Noah Shinn, just 23, announced a $350 million funding round that values his company at $2.5 billion. Investors like Index Ventures and Benchmark are betting that this isn't just another chatbot. It's an 'agent' — meaning it can actually do things for you, not just talk.

Here's how it works: you connect Instinct to your email, bank account, calendar, and other apps, then chat with it by text or phone call. Early users say it has planned cross-country road trips, bought weekly groceries and concert tickets, and even canceled hundreds of dollars in unwanted subscriptions. One person is reportedly planning their entire wedding with it. That's the dream — a personal assistant that handles life admin while you sleep.

But there's a catch. Instinct is still in private beta, and people online are already worried about privacy. The app asks for very generous permissions to your accounts, and its terms of use include language that some find invasive. In other words, the same access that lets it cancel your subscriptions also lets it see a whole lot about your life. For now, that risk is part of the trade-off.

The bigger story is what this means for everyone. If AI can reliably manage errands, it could change how we shop, plan, and handle money — saving time but raising big questions about who controls your data. Instinct is moving fast, but the debate over how much trust we give these agents is only beginning.