Instinct, the viral artificial intelligence assistant now valued at $2.5 billion, is rolling out dedicated email addresses for its users' agents. The feature, announced by founder Noah Shinn, gives each Instinct a separate email identity so it can create accounts, contact businesses, and manage follow up tasks without using the owner's personal inbox. Shinn described the change as a first step toward allowing Instinct to own and run its own accounts.
Dedicated Email Identities for AI Agents
The new addresses are available through mail.instinct.com, where users can claim a handle for their assistant. Early Instinct users have been assigned preferential addresses, while everyone else can reserve one through the dedicated site. The company says the separate email channel keeps sign ups, confirmations, and business correspondence out of the user's inbox.
Practical Tasks and Autonomous Follow Ups
Instinct can use its email to ask a restaurant about a special request, check a business's availability, or sign up for a service needed to complete a task. A user can forward an order confirmation and ask the assistant to contact support, provide order details, and determine whether a return or replacement is appropriate. Instinct pauses for the user's decision and then continues, for example by producing a return label to print.
Group Threads and Selective Context
The assistant can join group threads to track information exchanged among participants without needing full access to a user's entire email account. Users may forward long email chains and ask which decisions remain open, which tasks are due, or what requires immediate attention. This selective access gives Instinct enough context to act while preserving the user's control over broader inbox privacy.
A Broader Vision for Autonomous Assistance
Shinn framed the email rollout as part of a larger ambition to build an Instinct that has all the tools and communication channels it needs to take action by itself. The company has been adding capabilities so the assistant can move between websites, services, and conversations without forcing users to handle each step manually. The new address is positioned as a foundational element of that vision, allowing the agent to maintain accounts over time.
Broader Capability Expansion
The email feature follows several recent updates aimed at improving Instinct's ability to act independently. Last week the company partnered with 1Password to help the assistant log in to existing accounts, and it now offers location sharing to find nearby businesses, map routes, and answer questions about where a user has been. Instinct also partnered with Stripe in August to support payments for bookings, classes, appointments, and purchases.
Privacy and Business Implications
For businesses, an AI managed account may obscure whether they are communicating with a human customer or an automated system. For users, the feature offers greater convenience and privacy because they do not need to share personal contact details for simple or one time interactions. Instinct says it checks back only when input is required and otherwise acts autonomously.
Instinct's dedicated email addresses represent a meaningful shift in how AI assistants handle everyday administrative work. By giving the agent its own communication channel, the company is reducing friction while raising new questions about identity and trust in automated interactions. As these capabilities expand, users may increasingly delegate entire account based tasks to Instinct with minimal direct involvement.