We’re waiting for my friend’s partner to join us for dinner, when she says, “He’s running late. His agent told me he’s on another call.” Agent? Last I knew he wasn’t a celebrity. Surely I must have misheard.
Dear reader, I did not. My friend was referring to Instinct, an invite-only AI agent that’s been a hot commodity on X since August. “Did not get access to Instinct or Muse [a Meta AI agent]. Feeling like a kid outside the candy store 😭,” tweeted one user. Straight to you from the Silicon Valley, Instinct is a startup founded by 23-year-old Noah Shinn that recently raised $1 billion in a new funding round, taking its current valuation to $10 billion.
Like many AI apps today, Instinct can act on your behalf to manage your calendar, send emails, order groceries off Blinkit, book flights, pester customer service to give you a refund or organise a brunch date with your bestie. Unlike some AI agents in the market, it doesn’t demand that you learn the nitty-gritty of a new interface or switch apps; it lives on WhatsApp and iMessage, so it feels like texting just another contact on your phone.
Just this week, Shinn announced that Instinct’s latest feature, only available to early-access users, now allows the AI agent to be another member in your group chat. But it is also mildly offensive to those of us (read me) whose entire personality is being the dedicated group planner who is always typing “Guys, are we doing this or not this weekend???” on the chat?
The part where it gets really interesting is the ‘Trusted Person’ feature, which allows your Instinct AI agent to connect with another’s Instinct AI agent so that your agents can directly communicate with each other, something that its competitors, like Open AI’s Dots and Meta’s Muse, don’t have yet. In a relationship, this can create a new and strange type of intimacy where date nights, plans, anniversary reminders and even an ‘I love you’ message from your partner come to you through an intermediary. Think of two well-trained secretaries passing notes between their bosses. Very Set It Up.
I love you…and your AI agent
Mumbai-based Kaavyya Kesarwani, 27, and her boyfriend have been using Instinct for over a month. “Both our Instincts are friends. I’ve slid a ‘love you, miss you’ note to his Instinct. My boyfriend helps me file my GST, so I’ve permitted my Instinct to forward all GST-related OTPs to his Instinct,” she tells me, having found out about this AI agent on X, where everyone seems to be begging for an invite code. Each user usually gets five to 10 invites to hand out, though that number can vary. Like a well-oiled third wheel, it blocks their calendars for date night and plans all their social commitments together.
In Bengaluru, Sanya Shah, 28, also thinks of Instinct as a third stakeholder in her relationship with her boyfriend, who shared an invite with her back in September. “He’s currently studying for GRE, so whenever he misses a session, his Instinct tells mine. And then I jokingly relay a message back, telling him that I know he’s slacking,” says Shah. If she can’t reach him, she asks his Instinct his whereabouts and vice versa because, of course, an agent knows your schedule better than anyone. For the couple, this arrangement is less about keeping tabs on each other and more about having a mutual point of contact that can fill in the gaps when life gets busy.
Modern dating has always had its milestones—meeting the parents, sharing your location, or hard-launching on IG. Now there’s a new one to add to the list: connecting your AI agents. “The 2026 version of commitment is connecting to each other’s Instinct,” reads this tweet, and I think these couples might agree.
Till texting do us apart
Sari Azout, who is based in Miami, was one of the first beta testers of Instinct. Initially, the Trusted Person feature didn’t click with her: “It seemed easier to just text my husband about making Saturday dinner plans with friends than having our agents communicate about it,” she tells me. But the more she used it, the more its appeal became clear. “I use Instinct to Instinct with my husband and it’s amazing. Idk why, but he is much more responsive through my agent!” she tweeted.
She tells me that she’s referring to admin things like following up with her husband on whether he booked flights for an upcoming trip or coordinating carpool/kid logistics in particular. “I think there’s something about the idea that the agent will be persistent until it gets an answer, and it will be kind and respectful because it has no mind of its own. There are things I’m happy to offload to an agent because mothers, especially working moms, carry way too much in our heads. It’s reduced the logistical burden around running a family,” Azout explains. The only conversations outsourced from their marriage are the mundane, practical ones around availability and calendar aligning. Maybe that’s the sweet spot for couples juggling work, family, and everything in between; an AI agent could make showing up for each other a little easier.
Call me old-school, but maybe doing the mind-numbing grunt work is the point? The clumsy “I’m running late, traffic is crazy” call, double-texting shamelessly till you get a reply, or the ten-minute annoying negotiation over where to go for dinner... If the logistical comms gets automated for the sake of convenience, does it bring you closer together or make you more distant because the agents have it all figured out? Then again, maybe I’m seeing this through these rose-tinted glasses and it’s genuinely a mental offload for working moms like Azout.
So, if the 2026 version of commitment is connecting to each other’s Instinct, fine, I’m in. I’ll tell it to clear the calendar for Saturday night so I, a singleton, can finally spend time with my couch to watch Luke and Flora fall in love in the hit C-drama The Early Spring.
