More than half of transactions conducted through the Instinct personal agent involve travel, founder Noah Shinn said in a podcast interview. He also said the invitation-only platform is approaching $1 billion in annualized transaction volume, although he did not provide the calculation behind that figure.
Travel is a natural agent use case because planning requires comparing airlines, hotels and other services before completing a purchase. Shinn said users can state an urgent outcome, such as needing to reach New York that night, rather than navigating separate booking interfaces. He claimed the platform and transaction volume are growing about 10% per day. Those figures are company statements, not independently verified measurements.
Shinn also suggested agents could repeatedly check restaurant sites for scarce reservations, prompting criticism that automated requests or false claims about special occasions could disadvantage ordinary customers. Instinct recently raised $1 billion at a $10 billion valuation. Its early usage points to demand for delegated travel, while the reservation debate shows why platforms need fair-use rules for automated buyers.