Instinct, the $2.5B AI assistant, now has its own email address

Instinct, the buzzy AI assistant valued at $2.5 billion, just got its own email address. Founder Noah Shinn announced Tuesday that the agent can now create and manage its own accounts, contact businesses, and follow up on tasks without the user logging in or surrendering credentials.

The email handle is the second half of an identity stack Instinct started building the prior week with a 1Password partnership, which gave the assistant a way to handle logins.

One workflow, end to end: forward an order confirmation to Instinct, and the assistant emails support, asks return or replacement, and sends back a printable return label. Users can also add Instinct to group threads so it can extract decisions and check back only when human input is needed.

Shinn wrote that Instinct can "use its own email to contact a restaurant about a special request, ask a business about availability, or sign up for a service it needs to complete your task."

The business fielding that email does not always know whether it is talking to the customer or to an agent acting on the customer's behalf, a layer of obscurity that prior coverage had already flagged. Earliest users have reserved addresses; the rest can claim theirs at app.instinct.com/mailbox.

Support teams and small businesses will be the first to sort, in volume, which inbound messages are from the customer and which arrive via an AI delegate.