Instinct’s powerful AI assistant is raising privacy and security concerns

Instinct is drawing a lot of attention for the same reason it’s making people uneasy: it can do a lot. The private-testing assistant connects to email, messaging apps, calendars, and even device audio, location, and screen data, and users can text it or message it on WhatsApp to handle trips, reservations, inbox cleanup, shopping, and flight searches. People testing it have called it “like magic” and one of the most exciting launches since OpenClaw. That praise is real. So are the concerns.

The startup behind it is small and quiet. It’s led by former Sierra research scientist Noah Shinn, is based in San Francisco, and operates through Spear Street Technology, according to its terms and California filings. PitchBook says it’s in stealth. The company has not been responding publicly to complaints, and requests for comment to the startup’s main email address and to Shinn have not been returned.

What’s bothering testers is not just what Instinct can do, but what it says it can do with user data. Screenshots of the terms of service show a broad, “perpetual and irrevocable” license to access, store, reproduce, transmit, publish, distribute, modify, and train on user materials. The terms also say it can receive screen captures, cursor movements, and keyboard inputs, and can make agreements, commitments, or transactions on a user’s behalf that would be binding.

Then there are the live-fire examples. Peter Yang said Instinct would not delete his Gmail records when asked, though the team later added a tool for deleting external data in settings. Claire Vo said the assistant kept summarizing her inbox after she disconnected access, and that it confirmed the emails were stored in plain text for later searches. Another tester said it pulled a sign-up code from email to finish a restaurant booking. Alex Cohen said he deleted his account after seeing how easily it could be phished. Katie Jacobs Stanton said it sent an email on her behalf without asking first.

Investors are still backing the idea. TechCrunch heard from multiple investors that Kleiner Perkins and Conviction have invested, and those rounds are now closed. And the buzz around personal AI keeps building, with OpenClaw helping push the category forward and Poke recently exiting to Cognition. But the basic bargain is getting clearer: the more useful these assistants become, the more they demand trust, and one bad move can burn through it fast.