Instinct AI for Real Estate Agents: How to Get In, What It Does, What to Watch

What Instinct is

Instinct is a personal assistant from a San Francisco startup that you use by texting or calling it, like a person.

Its homepage says it "understands what you're working on and what's important to you" and connects to your email, messaging, screen, audio and location. The company behind it is Spear Street Technology, doing business as Instinct.

Its founder, Noah Shinn, was a research scientist at Sierra.

Money followed fast. Instinct raised a $250 million Series B co-led by Index Ventures and Benchmark at a $2.5 billion valuation, about $350 million in total.

The Information reported talks to raise about $1 billion more at around $10 billion, and more than 100,000 users.

What it can do for an agent

In Instinct's words, it handles "following up on threads you've dropped, proactively calling or texting you" and booking things like a handyman.

• Gmail and Google Calendar: its onboarding says it can catch things you'd miss, draft replies and handle scheduling.
• Its own email address, since Sept 8. You can forward email to it or add it to a group email thread.
• Phone calls, through an early-access service called Instinct Concierge, announced Sept 16.
• Coordinating with other people's Instincts through what it calls a Trusted Person network.
• Payments through a Stripe partnership, and logins through 1Password.

What it doesn't say it does

Instinct names no Follow Up Boss, kvCORE, MLS or Zillow connection, and it doesn't describe texting your clients from your own number.

Outlook and Microsoft 365 are not named in any public Instinct document we could read. Group texts are not stated.

Instinct describes a number you text or call; it doesn't describe a business line your clients can text. The only real estate stories so far are from buyers: Shinn said some users have used it to buy homes and find rentals.

One early user, quoted by TechCrunch, listed "CRM management" among his uses. That is one person's setup, not a feature Instinct lists.

What early users ran into

Early users called Instinct "like magic," and early coverage also reported a few problems an agent should weigh.

• A tester got an inbox summary three hours after disconnecting Google, and another said it sent an email without checking first (TechCrunch, Aug 24).
• A user asked it to find reservations and it booked a table with a $200 cancellation fee (Forbes, Aug 26).
• Users said it stopped replying mid-task on Sept 21 and 22 (TheStreet). Instinct has no public status page.