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

Everyone is buzzing about Instinct , an AI personal assistant still in private access, not only for its incredible capabilities, but also for its potential privacy concerns. The agent, a veritable taskmaster, has been praised as feeling “like magic” and being one of the “most exciting launches” since OpenClaw. However, some testers have also raised concerns about the AI agent’s security model and its worrisome terms of service .

To be fair, Instinct is still in private testing for now, so these concerns haven’t yet scaled to the wider public at this time.

Created by a small team led by former Sierra research scientist Noah Shinn , San Francisco-based Instinct is operated by Spear Street Technology, per its terms and California business filings . It’s currently operating in stealth, per PitchBook .

The AI agent itself works by connecting to your applications and devices, including your email, messaging apps, calendar, and your device’s audio, location, screen, and more. You can text the agent or call it via text message or WhatsApp, asking it to perform various tasks for you, like booking your appointments and reservations, scheduling a ride to the airport, cleaning up your inbox, organizing important information, handling your shopping, finding you cheap flights, and much more.

Though Instinct is described by testers as outperforming their expectations, some have also raised concerns about the company’s approach to customer privacy and security. This raises a timely question: are the trade-offs of giving AI this level of access and autonomy actually worth it?

For instance, several people are circulating screenshots from the company’s Terms of Service , which grant Instinct a broad “perpetual and irrevocable” license to “access, use, host, cache, store, reproduce, transmit, display, publish, distribute, and modify” any of the user’s materials, including for training its AI models. The terms also detail how Instinct can receive information from users’ devices, including screen captures, cursor movements, and keyboard inputs.

The terms also allow Instinct to enter into “agreements, commitments, or transactions” on users’ behalf, which would be binding.

let’s pause for a sec and talk about https://t.co/19wLOjliYq VCs, notable people, successful people hyping it up all week. They all just giving away their emails and all their personal data, emails, messages: “sub-licensable, worldwide, perpetual and irrevocable license to… pic.twitter.com/MWb3LKnvQp

From a #cyberhealth perspective, Instinct is a hard no. On the positive side, their policy is 100% forthcoming. However, the access they require comes with responsibility I would not bestow on any company. For those who desire speed or the "current thing" if you want to be… https://t.co/HdXO1k18u3 pic.twitter.com/VczQw9P0Sa