Instinct, a San Francisco-based startup building a personal AI agent for everyday tasks, has raised an additional $1 billion in its Series C funding round, bringing the company’s valuation to $10 billion.
The round was backed by Sequoia Capital, Benchmark Capital and Coatue. The latest investment comes about a month after Instinct’s previous funding round, when the company was valued at $2.5 billion.
Founded and led by Noah Shinn, Instinct is developing an AI agent designed to complete everyday tasks on behalf of users. The platform can handle activities such as planning trips, ordering groceries, booking restaurants, paying bills and cancelling subscriptions.
“We’re building Instinct to be the best personal agent, one that understands the nuances of everyday life. This funding will help make Instinct available to more people and allow us to keep building the future of personal AI. This is an exciting and creative time, and we’re just getting started, ” said, Noah Shinn, founder of Instinct.
Rather than only providing answers, Instinct is designed to complete tasks from start to finish. Users can interact with the service through text or calls, while the agent uses its own phone number and computer to carry out tasks.
The company launched in August 2026 as an invite-only service and remains in early access.
In recent months, Instinct has introduced several new features aimed at expanding what its personal AI agent can do.
Instinct Concierge is designed for more complex, high-touch tasks, including making phone calls, booking services and handling situations where online booking is unavailable. Examples include calling a restaurant that does not accept online reservations or requesting a dentist’s cancellation appointment.
The company has also introduced a Trusted Person Network, which allows Instinct agents to communicate with other Instinct agents to coordinate plans. The system also supports file sharing, including PDFs, images and spreadsheets.
Another feature, Location Sharing, works through iMessage. Instinct can recognize when a user arrives at a location and provide suggestions or answer questions based on the user’s preferences.
Privacy and security have also been a focus as Instinct develops its personal AI technology. The company says it uses isolated sandboxes, short-lived local credentials and identity-signed tool execution.
Instinct has also introduced an active detection system designed to identify subtle hallucinations while the agent is generating responses and prevent them from being used or executed.
The focus on privacy comes as personal AI agents gain attention and raise questions around the amount of personal information these systems can access.
Instinct previously faced criticism over its privacy policy and subsequently updated the policy.
Instinct is entering a growing market for AI agents that can perform tasks rather than simply respond to prompts.
The company competes with other AI assistants, including Muse from Meta, which is integrated with Meta’s social platforms and can perform tasks such as summarizing Instagram messages and Facebook group posts.
Instinct currently interacts with users primarily through SMS and does not have a dedicated mobile app. The company has not publicly disclosed its user numbers or growth metrics.
With the additional $1 billion in funding, Instinct plans to expand its operations, continue product development and grow the reach of its personal AI agent.
